Ivoria, Tanith Lee [popular ebook readers .TXT] 📗

has since called them. A representative is due to visit tomorrow.

Pond then moves on to the second matter. “A Miss Kitty Price-Andrew used to work at the BBC TV Centre in London in 2005-6. She was some sort of PA, purportedly, or maid-of-all-work, as my source there commented. Definitely not a producer, though she may well have met your brother in Manchester, as she was drafted up there this year. She subsequently left this October. I got a colleague to try the flat where I saw her, in Wimbledon. But he was told Ms Andrew, as she’s known there, has had to go to the USA urgently on account of a sick relative. There are no names on the bells in her block, I may add, or I should have reacted to the name Andrew immediately you mentioned it. My own idea now, though I may be mistaken, is that Ms Andrew took fright when she heard or read of your brother’s death in the media. Psychology is a funny thing, Mr Lewis. Subconsciously she’s probably well aware of her culpability. That might have caused her to run off. In any case, she had no current job, and like your Number 14 lot, may have had to get out in a hurry. Which brings me to the other flat at Marylebone. That belongs to a Mrs Jonquil Franks. This isn’t another Price-Andrew alias. Mrs Franks is known by sight by other tenants. An elderly lady, about seventy, seventy-five. Perhaps we can deduce she lets Ms Andrew use a bedroom in the flat, but we don’t know why, do we, Mr Lewis?”

“No,” says Nick. He does not know either what he feels, whether relived or angry, or only depressed. Really, he finds it hard to concentrate. The insane bits and pieces of these investigated recent events have become - unpredictably trivial to him. Perhaps they are truly over, floating away on some sea tide of life, into the dark.

“What I thought,” says Pond, compactly finishing his beer, “is that we might both pay a call on Mrs Franks. She’s seen neither of us. Or if she did glimpse you the other night we can furnish a reason for that.”

“I have to meet someone,” says Nick. “In about an hour.”

It is almost the exact excuse he gave Laurence, but now it is perfectly true. He is seeing Serena at six-thirty.

“This won’t take very long,” says Pond, composedly. “I have the car outside. Or if you’d rather not, I can do it alone.”

Nick has the crazy notion Pond is disappointed, had wanted to take Nick to the Marylebone flat, display his good workmanship.

Nick says, “All right.” He has felt obliged to, yet as they both get up he thinks Pond actually is only indifferent, had merely given Nick the option. Even, maybe, hoped he would refuse?

Pond’s car is a drab grey Volkswagon Golf, but it obviously handles well, the engine perhaps improved on. They proceed via a strange medley of side roads and near-alleys -some cobbled - somehow avoiding most of the shining, bunching evening traffic. Despite the cars and buses surging along the Marylebone Road, the back streets close on them and sink the noise and all movement in a spurious serenity.

The two, oddly prophetic, trees as before raise their static boughs above the gateway. Pond parks by the kerb.

Tonight the shadows seem flatter yet sharper where they spread along the pavement, and the neat lawn inside the wall. Nick finds he does not want to walk up to the old Georgian house. It will be an act of going back into the past. As soon it will be, too, with his sister. He has not met her, face to face, for nine years. What, after all, will they say to each other? She had asked they meet in a public place, her logic being that there she will not allow herself to break down. (Break-in, break down, break.) But the public place will also enable them to look at and mention other things, if necessary to escape each other behind the theatrical drop-curtains of other people. This she did not say; it is self-evident.

Nick and Pond walk up to the house.

There are a few higher lights on, generally folded behind blinds or drapes. The descent to the basement floor is unlit. Then, at their approach, a security light flashes up. That had not happened either time when Nick came here before. Perhaps it was then switched off, or broken, and is now on or repaired - or just fitted today.

Pond has rehearsed Nick in their roles. They are quite simple ones. Nick had met Ms Andrew when she worked at the BBC. He is looking for her now as he owes her the return of a loan she kindly made him, when he lost his flat last year. Now he is housed again, and wants to repay the money. She had told him she was sometimes at this address, so that is where he has come. Pond, an old family friend, has come along as well to vouch for Nick, in case Ms Franks is concerned. And Pond had pushed a note to this effect through Ms Franks’s door earlier this afternoon.

“Psychology again,” Pond had remarked. “People are more inclined if something is promised rather than demanded.” Meanwhile, he had added, as secondary player, Pond could observe more fully.

Pond gives the knocker a brisk crack.

The dim light is there in the stained glass, Nick now sees, as before. And here again, the muted, almost animal-like sound of slowish footfalls. Someone to open the door…

But the door does not…

But the door does.

It opens on a chain, and something is there, peering out around it with half one glittering eye.

Nick can smell dust and must and female scent, some rather stale. These odours are stronger now. He had, when with Kit, barely noticed them.

“Ms Franks?” asks Pond.

“Mrs. Mrs Franks. Are you the one what put that letter through? Eh? What game are you