Flynn was rather pleased to be seen entering Marivaux’s with Fael. The wheelchair, borrowed from the theatre, did not matter because she was striking enough to render it almost unnoticeable, and she would turn heads in any company; Flynn saw a few heads turning tonight as they arrived, and his masculine ego was flattered.
As they took their places Fael spun the wheelchair offhandedly into place at the table, and introductions were made and glasses filled. Conversation buzzed everywhere, and as the wine circulated, the decibel level began to rise. People were laughing, and waiters were bringing round plates of smoked salmon and extra ice buckets for the wine. Fael’s eyes narrowed when she smiled; they were pure, clear green like a cat’s, and Flynn thought: She’s not in the least beautiful and she’s certainly not pretty. But she’s got something that I don’t think I’ve ever encountered in any other female. Something elusive like moonlight or quicksilver. ‘Melting the Moonlight’ – yes, of course, Toddy wrote that to her mother; I remember the professor telling me about it once.
Fael suddenly turned to face him as if she had caught this last thought and their eyes met. Flynn looked at her steadily over the rim of his wine glass, and something strongly sexual thrummed on the air between them. Flynn smiled at her lazily and raised his wine glass in a mock salute, and Fael stared at him. The moment lengthened and it deepened as well, and something stirred that was deeper and stronger than anything physical. Mental intimacy in the blink of an eyelash, thought Flynn. Jesus God, there’s a thing now. That would be the devil of a complication! I don’t want to get into anything that deep, do I? Or do I, though?
And then from Sir Julius’s table somebody tapped the side of a glass, and Julius was getting to his feet to make a speech of some kind, and half-serious, half-drunken toasts were being proposed from several of the tables, and everyone was laughing and the moment passed.
It was probably just as well. Flynn returned abruptly to reality, and was aware of someone at the table saying something about Tod: wasn’t it odd not to see him here, and did anyone know where he was?
‘Probably hassling a Broadway producer into buying the show,’ said Flynn, draining his glass.
‘No, but it is strange that he’s not here.’
‘Does Tod actually know any Broadway producers?’ asked the Fianna captain hopefully.
‘Of course not, but he’d like us to think he does. He’s probably giving an interview to an obscure journalist in some steamy nightclub,’ said Flynn. ‘And getting drunk in the process. Talking of getting drunk, will I refill everyone’s glass with this Traminer?’
Christian waited until he was sure that everyone had left the theatre, before venturing out.
The stench of Miller’s blood was already tainting the small, windowless room, and the desk where Miller had been sitting was in an appalling state, with blood soaking into the polished surface and staining the litter of papers.
Miller’s eyes had rolled up showing only the whites and there was a stale wet smell from the expulsion of urine in the death spasm. As Christian looked at Miller’s blank dead stare with exultant hatred his own soaring finale music reached him faintly, and then there was frantic applause and cheers, and shouts for ‘author’.
For a wild moment Christian toyed with the idea of going out there; of carrying this contemptible figure to the forefront of the stage so that the entire house could see him. ‘Here is the creature who would have had you believe him Cauldron’s author and composer and librettist . . . Here is the sly greedy cheat who would have basked in your praise and given never a thought to the real authors . . . Because one of them is up there in the stage box, and here before you is the other one . . .!’
It could not be done, of course; it was Svengali stuff, Phantom of the Opera territory, and there would have been stunned embarrassed silence before Christian was dragged away and unmasked. But for a moment a fierce desire to be recognised – to have his work acknowledged and complimented, and to take part in the happy exultant discussions about the show – seized him, and a violent tremor shook his whole body. He felt Rossani’s dark evil begin to uncurl deep within his mind, and he quenched it almost at once.
A cursory search had been made for Miller half an hour or so after curtain-fall; Christian heard people coming along the corridor outside, and somebody trying the door. He remained absolutely still, and heard a voice say, ‘Locked. Then he’s not here, that’s for sure.’
A second voice said, ‘Oh, he’s probably already on his way to Marivaux’s. Which is where we should be if we don’t want to miss everything.’
The footsteps started to move away, and Christian began to relax.
And then the first voice said, ‘Did you notice Flynn Deverill keeping up to his reputation?’
‘What—? Oh, the first-night legend. Who’s he going to be laying tonight?’
The footsteps were fading, but Christian just caught the reply.
‘Fael Miller by the look of it,’ said the voice. ‘Not that I blame him – she’s a cracker, isn’t she?’
Fael, thought Christian as the footsteps went out of hearing, and somewhere at the back of his mind Rossani’s mesmeric claws unsheathed and flexed. The gore-splashed office with the fetid stench of Miller’s blood blurred, and beyond it he glimpsed the nightmare wastelands of Rossani’s dark realm.
He forced it back – dive thoughts, down into my soul! – but it stayed with him, and the insidious thoughts stayed as well.
Fael. But not just Fael: Fael and Flynn together. Are you with him now, Fael? thought Christian in silent anguish. Are you at Marivaux’s, enjoying the food and the wine and the company? – stunning them all with the way you look – because they think you’re a cracker, Fael, they’re all saying so . . .
And what about afterwards? Will Flynn take you home with him, and from there to bed with him, Fael? Because that’s what he does, my dear, that’s his reputation and he’ll surely live up to his reputation tonight of all nights. Images of Fael and Flynn together scalded his mind, and he was aware of Rossani’s world pulling him in more strongly than it had ever done before. He could hear the claw scratchings and the slitherings of the faceless shades that walked in that strange underworld; he could feel the beating of leathery wings on the dark lowering skies . . .
You shouldn’t have gone off with him, Fael. You shouldn’t have let people link the two of you. You’re mine, Fael; you’re mine body and soul and blood and bone, just as Mab was Aillen mac Midha’s, just as the rainbow-haired heroine of the Dwarf Spinner was Rossani’s . . .
Rossani . . .
The evil twilight of that other world closed over his head. Oh Fael, you shouldn’t have betrayed me with Flynn, thought Christian.
It was almost midnight when he unlocked the door of Tod Miller’s office, and went swiftly through the dark hallways and landings, lit by low security lights. He moved as quietly and as insubstantially as the shadow that the Soho call-girls had named him, his eyes scanning the corners for movement, his ears straining for the least sound that would mean he was being followed. But no eyes watched from the darkness and no creeping footsteps came after him, and he descended to the lower levels and went through the old door and down to the brick tunnel.
Christian had no idea if the same security arrangements held; it was possible that now the show was running the timing of the patrols had been altered. But even if they had, it was unlikely that the security men would come down here. And even if they did he would hear them and have time to hide. It might take some time to do what Rossani had whispered, but he would do it.
As he went through the opening he had made a week ago, he caught the sickly sweet gust of decaying flesh, and Rossani’s smile curved his incomplete lips.
And now he was alone with the ghosts and with his own victims.
But as he worked, Rossani was at his side, chuckling throatily as he painted the dark images on Christian’s mind. It was time to display their cunning, whispered Rossani. It was time to let these fools see the extent of their cleverness.
Isolate Fael, said Rossani; isolate her, not only from Flynn, but from the entire world. Cut her off from all contact, shut her away. And then she really would be mine, thought Christian, and his heart began to race as he remembered the closeness they had shared and the way her mind had flowed into his. Something wholly unfamiliar fastened around his heart, because was it possible, was it remotely conceivable, that after all there might be something good in the world for him . . .? Oh God, he thought, oh God, if I could believe she would not shrink from me . . . Would she?
And now the images were changing; they were no longer images of Fael with Flynn, they were of Fael by herself in the Moher house. Living there, driving back the shadows, bringing back the light and the happiness.
He thought: And supposing there could be a child?
A child . . . A little girl, perhaps: mischievous, elfin-eyed with slanting cheekbones . . . Or a slender supple boy, gilt-haired, with ears set just a fraction too high to look entirely human . . . But in either case, beautiful and complete. Unmarred . . .
And would the chill inhuman sidh covet it? Would they steal it away because of its beauty, and replace it with the changeling of the old beliefs: the ancient withered thing that was of no more use to the tribe, and that constantly cried to its foster-mother for attention . . .? The age-old superstition reared up anew to taunt him, and even though he knew it for the dark fantasising of a mind soured and embittered, it was still very real to him.
Fael, and a child – a child so lovely, so filled with brilliance and beauty, that the sidh might indeed attend its birth, they might indeed slyly sprinkle their intoxicating music into the eyes and ears and senses of the humans. They might covet such a child so greedily that they would be prepared to strike a bargain. Take this one but in return you must give back the unmarred unflawed babe you stole all those years ago . . . I’m suffering a spell of madness, he thought. I really am.
But people had bargained with devils and demons before now and not been necessarily mad, even though some of them had been dragged down to hell, there to suffer endless torment, and even though others had been torn apart by the greedy cohorts of Satan. But there had been those who had beaten the devil at his own game, and yoked the demons and harnessed the devil’s power for a time. The idea, once seeded, lodged a little more firmly in his mind; it snaked little silken roots into his brain. Fael and a child who would be born in Maise, as Christian had been born in Maise. A child who could be used as a pawn, as bait.
And in return, I will have the semblance of humanity that was my birthright . . .
The party at Marivaux’s, which had been sinking into torpor, revived magically, when Stephen Sherry and two of the ASMs burst through the door with armfuls of early editions of the morning papers.
‘Distribute them all round,’ shouted Sir Julius, and for several minutes the room was filled with the sound of pages being turned, and mutterings of, ‘Can’t find the theatre page,’ and, ‘Well, I shan’t pay any attention whatever the critics say,’ and, from the lodge-keeper’s table, ‘Of course, dear boy, I’ve been reviewed by Harold Hobson and Kenneth Tynan, you know.’
And then everyone who had a newspaper suddenly found the theatre page, and an abrupt silence fell. Fael, who was sharing the Daily Mail with Flynn and the Fianna captain, felt her heart start to bump alarmingly. Because this was it, if the critics liked Cauldron people would go to see it and it would run, and she would have scored a success, and Scathach would have scored it with her. The print danced in front of her eyes, and she forced her mind to concentrate.
And then Flynn said, ‘“The stunning, eerily beautiful new show at the Harlequin . . .”’ and at the same moment, Sir Julius said, ‘“Absolutely not to be missed . . .”’ and somewhere else in the room somebody was saying, ‘“Music that will haunt you for days and settings that will stay with you for ever . . .”’
And then from all round the room, the acclaim was coming like soft sweet rain falling on an upturned face . . .
‘Spell-binding . . .’ ‘Raunchy and tender . . .’ ‘Will have you laughing at one minute and crying the next . . .’ ‘Aillen mac Midha sizzles across the stage . . .’ ‘Newcomer Gilly Blair a delight as the beleaguered Irish heroine . . .’
And it was all true, it was really happening: Cauldron was a success, it was a huge smash hit, and Fael was having to tell herself she would not cry, she absolutely would not . . .
Flynn took Fael home in a taxi shortly before four a.m. The taxi was the old type where the driver was separated from the passengers by a glass partition, and the interior was dark and close and intimate. There used to be jokes about what people got up to in the back of taxis, or maybe they weren’t jokes at all.
The idea of asking Flynn in for a nightcap flickered across Fael’s mind again, only to be reluctantly dismissed. He might see it as a direct invitation, which would look blatant after meeting him for the first time tonight. People in wheelchairs could not get away with being blatant. She had learned that when Simon did his vanishing act at the time of the car crash.
There was also the fact that bringing Flynn into the house – no matter how unblatant the intention – would emphasise her disabled state, and he might think she had only done it because she needed help.
But it would be rather nice – well, it would be better than nice – to sit talking over the evening with Flynn, discussing Cauldron, and perhaps laughing over the supper at Marivaux’s. They could sit in the music room, and she could switch on the low desk lamp and maybe even bank up the fire . . .
Oh sure, said her mind sardonically. And what about Scathach? Or are you really going to kid yourself that he’ll stay away tonight? Tonight of all nights he’ll be with you, and let’s be fair about this, let’s give the devil his due: he’s the one you should be discussing Cauldron with. So how would you deal with that situation? Introduce them? Flynn, this is the guy who wrote Cauldron with me, only I don’t know his name, and I don’t know what he looks like. Oh, and this is Flynn Deverill, who I think I rather fancy – who I should think half of London fancies . . . And supposing Tod blunders in halfway through, or starts noisily throwing up in the loo because he’s had too much to drink again?
For the first time, Fael thought crossly: Oh damn Scathach! and she was still weighing up the pros and cons when Flynn resolved it for her by asking the taxi to wait while he saw her to the door. Serve you right! thought Fael, manoeuvring the horrid chair down the path and up the ramp leading to the front door. There you were, planning it all out, and he wasn’t interested after all! Probably he had been sorry for her and it had not occurred to him to think of her in a sexual capacity. Probably he was going straight on to a rendezvous with someone who was capable of performing the entire works of the Kama Sutra all the way through without pausing for breath. One of those beautiful, sensuous sidh girls, for instance. I hope he enjoys it, thought Fael, crossly. No I don’t; I hope she was eating garlic all evening so that he gets a faceful of it, secondhand, when he wakes up next to her tomorrow morning!
She thanked him for helping her, and for the great evening, and added, as if it had just occurred to her, that he would always be welcome to drop in for a drink any time. This was the kind of thing you could say without anyone reading anything much into it. Flynn said, ‘I’ll do that,’ which was the kind of rejoinder you could give without it meaning a thing. He waited until she was in the house, and then went back out to the waiting taxi and presumably on to whatever else might be waiting for him.
The house was in darkness, and Tod was not home yet. Fael checked the downstairs cloakroom where he always hung his outdoor things and kicked his shoes off. Nothing. And the answerphone on the hall table was registering two unread messages, which was a sure sign that he was still out; Tod could not resist finding out who had phoned him, no matter how late he arrived home, or how drunk he was when he got there.
Fael played the messages in case there was one for her from Tod himself, but there were only a couple of ‘good luck’ calls for Cauldron: one from Tod’s agent and one from someone whom Tod frequently drank with at the Greasepaint Club and who sounded sloshed. Fael scribbled a note of them on the pad for whenever Tod got home, reset the machine, and wheeled down the hall to her own room. The theatre had told her to keep the chair for a day or two, which had been nice of them. It was a bit awkward to manipulate, but it would be a godsend until she could find her own.
The house felt a bit cold, in fact it felt downright chilly. That would be because of the smashed garden door, of course. Actually it felt peculiarly unfriendly as well as chilly. Fael found herself glancing nervously over her shoulder and suddenly wished she had asked Flynn in after all, and be blowed to what he thought. She went determinedly into the kitchen, switching on lights along the way. She would make a cup of tea and drink it while she got ready for bed. She banged cupboard doors and clattered crockery deliberately loudly because they were friendly, everyday sounds. The singing of the kettle as the water started to boil was friendly as well. Ridiculous to have been so nervous earlier.
The evening had been wonderful but it had been tiring; Fael was not used to being out until the small hours, and there had been the terrific tension of watching Cauldron. Well, all right, of watching the last two acts of Cauldron. A smile curved her lips as she poured water into the teapot. Cauldron had been good, it had been tremendous. Everyone at the party had said so, and Fael thought they had meant it and were not just being polite. The critics had said so as well, and they had certainly not been polite.
It would be luxuriously good to stretch out in bed, sipping the hot tea, and drift into sleep thinking about it all. And just for tonight she would not think about recognition or rightful attributions, and people snatching credit. Nobody had snatched anything tonight, in fact the person she had expected to do most of the snatching seemed to have vanished before the final curtain.
Fael considered her father’s absence as she stirred milk into her tea. She was puzzled, but not wildly alarmed. They had agreed to make their separate ways home, and when her father had given her her key back, he had hinted that he might have other fish to fry later. This was not at all out of pattern; in fact it was not unknown for Tod to stay out all night or come home with the milk. It was usually better not to question him too much on those occasions, although sometimes he proffered information of his own accord, hinting boastfully at some new conquest or some new important business deal struck in exalted surroundings.
It was cold in here. Fael started to wheel across to the hall once more, and for the first time saw that the board she had propped across the garden door was not where she had left it. A faint thread of alarm slithered through her mind. She had wedged the board quite tightly, although it was just conceivable that it could have slid to the floor of its own accord, or been dislodged by a gust of wind. If Tod had come home earlier he could have banged a door somewhere and unseated it. But Tod had not come home, and gusts of wind or slamming doors would not have put the board where it was now, which was against the larder, three feet away from the door.
Fael stared at the board, and thought: Someone’s been in the house. Someone’s been in here while I was out. Tod? No, Tod would have used his own key and come in through the front door. The nape of her neck began to prickle with fear, and a chilling picture formed of someone pushing the board away from outside and squeezing through. It would be the easiest thing in the world to walk around the side of the house unseen and get in. There had not seemed to be any signs of burglary anywhere, but Fael had not really checked. It was necessary to check now, and perhaps phone the police. It was vital not to panic.
Fael was just deciding that she was not anywhere near to panicking when a sound from beyond the kitchen sent her heart bounding up into her throat. Someone was in the cellar.
She shrank back into the chair, one hand going to her mouth. Someone in the cellar! Someone walking slowly across the old stone floor of the basement directly beneath the kitchen! Her father? She grabbed the thought. Could it be Tod after all? Perhaps taken ill in the theatre – something trivial but debilitating like violent earache, or something embarrassing like sickness and diarrhoea – and quietly getting a taxi home so as not to upset anyone’s enjoyment.
But Tod had never considered anyone else’s feelings in his entire life, and if he had come home because of illness he would certainly have made sure that Fael knew. He would have sent for her in the theatre, or phoned through to Marivaux’s, and he would have demanded her attendance along with hot-water bottles and aspirin, or whisky in warm milk, and consultations about the desirability of summoning a doctor. And the only reason Tod ever went into the cellar was to bring up a bottle of wine or mend a fuse.
Fael remained very still, listening intently. Yes, there it went again. Someone was walking stealthily across the cellar.
The thought that it might be Scathach brushed her mind and for a moment hope bounded up. But I don’t believe he would hide and lie in wait like this, thought Fael, her mind working frantically. He’d wait in the garden like he always does. He wouldn’t know if my father would be with me, or if we might have brought someone back for a drink. Oh, why didn’t I ask Flynn to come in? Someone’s in the cellar and he’s creeping up towards me, and I’m trapped. No, of course I’m not trapped, I can get out, or I can get help. Can I get through the garden door and out into the night and yell for help? No, of course I can’t. Police then – can I ring the police? Where the hell is the phone? She looked frenziedly about for the cordless phone that she normally kept to hand. Nowhere to be seen. Never mind it, there’s the ordinary kitchen extension on the wall. She began to inch the chair across the floor, trying not to make any sound. Her heart was hammering and the palms of her hands were slippery with sweat.
She was halfway across the kitchen, when there was the abrupt click of a heavy switch being depressed and at once every light went out. Darkness, immediate and overwhelming, closed down.
And now terror swept in unchecked, because Fael knew exactly what had happened. The intruder, whoever he was, had deliberately thrown the mains electricity switch from below, and plunged the entire house into darkness. Unless she could get out, she was absolutely at his mercy.
She could hear the characteristic creak of the wooden steps that debouched into the hall, just beneath the stairs. Then he’s coming up to get me, thought Fael, backing towards the smashed garden door, her heart racing with terror, icy sweat sliding between her shoulder-blades. He’s creeping up the stairs – yes, that’s the door at the top opening. That means he’s in the hall now.
And now she could hear him plainly; he was moving slowly towards the kitchen, and there was the sound of his breathing. Harsh, slightly too-fast breathing, like warped sexual arousal. Oh God. But by now her eyes were adjusting to the darkness a little, and she could see the phone on its wall bracket, tantalisingly near. Could I get to it and summon help? Because if I know the police are on their way – if he knows it as well! – I might manage to fight him off until they get here. I’ll find a weapon – a knife, yes, that’s the thing. If I can get to the drawer under the sink and get the breadknife I’ll stick it in his guts the minute he touches me . . . I’ll hate it, but I’ll do it. As she gripped the sides of her chair, she heard the soft pad of footsteps coming towards her, and the dreadful aroused breathing. There was a whisper of silk.
And then a soft, familiar voice said, ‘Hello Fael.’