Turquoiselle, Tanith Lee [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

I can’t use my phone,Car – she’s stopped me recharging it – so it doesn’t work – and her two – she’shidden them – she’skeeping me prisoner, Car – Car you have to believe me – I’ve only got a minute –seconds – Car help me – get me out–”

“Doyou mean Maggie?” he asked slowly, quietly and distinctly .

“Yes– yes – Maggie – who else? Maggie. She’s been drugging me or something –I kept falling asleep – she kept saying I had to rest, I was all in – I don’tknow what she gave me – it may harm the baby–”

Ah,the baby again. Carver said, “Donna, are you really saying your mother has gonecrazy and has–”

“Idon’t know if she’s gone crazy, Car. I don’t know, Car. She’s always been –well, odd, sometimes... Carver – I can’t leave this fucking house –” The lastsentence came over in a thin savage wail. “She locks me in if she goes out. Takesthe keys. Car – please – you have to come–”

Hethought, with a horrible lack of startlement, let alone compassion, or anysense of personal sadness, She’s gone crazy herself. She’s beyond reason. It was as if awall of granite, miles thick, miles high, separated them. It was as if she werean actress, acting all this very badly in a lousy TV drama he must now switchoff. He wanted, he found, to switch it off quickly. And he wanted to staybehind the granite wall.

“Donna,”he said, “I can’t come over tonight.” She said nothing. “I have stuff I have tosee to, can’t get out of it. I’ll come tomorrow evening, after I get back fromLondon.” Lynchoak, he thought, was near enough to Beechurst. It would besimple. If he had to, he could bring this mad woman home then. But not now. Nottonight. He must keep tonight – between them.

Hewas very tired, that was it. He would not be safe driving all that extradistance, after all the driving already today, and only one hour’s sleep caughtup on the previous night. He would be a fool to try to drive. God knew what waswrong at Maggie’s. Nothing, probably. Donna was drunk. Or something in thepregnancy – if there was one – had upset the chemicals in her brain. Whichchemicals anyhow never entirely kept steady, going on her general demeanourover recent years.

“Justtry to keep calm,” he repeated to her new silence. “Take things slowly. Maggieisn’t going to hurt you. We’ll sort it all out tomorrow.”

Thenshe breathlessly whispered, and he grasped she had not listened, had not heardhis denial of her, his decision of not yet going over, rescue deferred. “She’s back. She’s back. Her car’s there. I’ll –Oh Christ–” and the phone, presumably put down, went dead.

Carverstood in the hall, listening himself again to the other silence of thedarkness, which was not like Donna’s silence at all.

Couldsomething so irrational be going on? Maggie of the Chevrolet off her head – butwhy – for what reason? Maggie was fairly grounded, sufficiently sane. It was Donnawho might not be.

Donnawho had alleged Carver had attacked her. Donna begging him – the attacker – Please Car – please, Car – to save herfrom a blonde dragon with such nicely moisturised scales and elegantlymanicured talons, and an independent bank balance donated by several approvingand satisfied male lovers who had never found fault.

Carverleft the phone active, he would not unplug it yet. That would be his singleconcession to Donna’s outcry. She could have a further twenty minutes, beforehe grabbed his four or five hours of sleep. Twenty minutes to evade herwardress with the drugged wine, and call him again.

Upstairs,as the computer in the ‘playroom’ shuffled its files for him, he thought Donnaherself had doubtless forgotten to recharge her mobile phone, or lost it – shehad lost two in the past six months, leaving one in a pub in Beechurst, shesaid, somehow dropping the other during a ramble through a park somewhere. Hadshe always been this feckless, this ‘dotty’? Not in the beginning. No.

Thefile flicked open its screen pages.

Heread, as he had done already several times, the introductory paragraphs. The Third Scar purported to bea script in the making, sponsored by a movie outfit that required some privatefunding. It had been dressed up, Carver thought, rather like a modern mysteryfor a nouveau Sherlock Holmes, with the implicated supernatural undertowinherent in, say, TheHound of the Baskervilles or The Sussex Vampire. A curse wasthreatened with the manifestation of a Third Scar. But the scar had three rivalmeanings: 1) A mark on the left arm or hand, of some unspecified sort, 2) Ascar (or scaur) being thesteep craggy outcrop of a cliff or mountain. The third meaning was stranger. 3)Postulated the use of Scar as a family name, the final descendants to bear it,three in number; the third and last being the child of the other two.

Theplot involved, inevitably, crimes and secrets, not least the apparent cursethat brought potential death no less thoroughly than the danger of a phantomhound, or a predilection of some thirsty foreign female vampire.

Thephone rang again.

Despitehimself Carver tensed. He got up, went to the door and along to the head of thestairs. There he stayed. The mechanical voice broke in, offering the caller itsmessage option.

Whatwould Donna say now?

Anight-cold, night-silent rage pulsed through Carver, gushing upward from hisfeet – and perished as another voice than Donna’s entered the house.

Itwas male. Seeming young. Diction exact. Not wasting a word. For it only offeredone. “Silvia” said thevoice. Nothing else. Message given and ended.

Carversprang down the stair. The phone showed only that the number was withheld.

Hehad already texted Latham, by the agreed channel, to register the tail toTunbridge and on the train. And the visitor in the woods. There had been noresponse, nor had Carver expected one. Like the Donna problem, that was fortomorrow.

Butthis. What to do withthis?

Hechecked the games key Icon again. The signal had begun to blip. But it was thesame clue, the verdict of the judge which still indicated the initials S.D. TheAlert Level however had gone down to Blue – today’s Lucky Stone was