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

been abducted by a magpie. One heard of such avian feats. The Man would not have taken either object, it went without saying. Only any loose money. That was all The Man ever took, before someone else had it.

There was one question left over in Pond’s mind. Why had Kitra, who when she did this did not know Laurence was yet dead, contact Nick and go to bed with him? A conundrum, a nut Pond would no doubt go on trying to shell for some while, if only privately. Decidedly he would not discuss it. With anyone.

When their dialogue concluded, Pond felt he had indulged and expunged any uncharacteristic warmth or care he had experienced for Nick. It had entertained Pond to allow himself the treat, if treat it had been. He had, he admitted, been quite paternal and reassuring. Another part he had played - and rather well. And like many good theatrical troopers, while he did it, he had believed in it. Pond had always known, it was not only film stars who could act.

To visit the old woman’s flat behind Harley Street was the ultimate task. Not for Nick’s sake, but to put the whole set-up together and pack it away.

Pond now wanted to know how Kitra used the place. He wanted Nick with him too, as a distraction for whoever was in there. Kitra, if present, might recall Pond - or not, the vague oldish man wanting Mr Purvis upstairs… But Nick she would know, Biblically at least. And if Kitra were not there, which was the most likely, Nick - young, handsome, appealing - would still get most of the attention. Even up front, Pond could keep inside the shadows.

Meeting the elderly madwoman, the Greek Jew or whatever she was, Jonquil Franks, (if that was her name), Pond noted she also referred to Kitra by the partial alias - or nickname - of ‘Kitty’. That Franks was Kitra’s grandmother was, he supposed, possible. The rest of the tale, that Kitty herself had bought the flat, Franks’s upbringing of Kitty, (which might well explain some of Kitty’s own insanity), that Kitty always dumped men and then they turned up angry - though Granny was quite willing to chase them off, perhaps when riding her broomstick - even the detail of Franks’s own ancient over-sexed boyfriend, (God help him) - these facts had not seemed at odds with anything else so far. That Franks’s flat served as an occasional sex joint for Kitra might also make sense. She would often need to avoid raging insulted lovers. Had only Laurence been allowed to call on her at both establishments?

Pond left Nick to think he, Pond, remained perplexed over several aspects. Pond had given away only what he felt could be helpful for himself, and Angela.

Conversely, on the other issue of Nick’s burglar, or team of same, Pond had rendered up all the information he had legitimately gleaned.

That Number 14 now stood empty, while one of the former residents was ill in hospital, were things he had unearthed and thus passed on. Pond had, inevitably, found the burglary less interesting than the rest of the maelstrom. But here at least he felt he had done his best, in his role of paid private investigator. The premise he would continue to work on the ‘case’ was only a sop tossed to Nick when they parted on the South Bank. To recommend the special locksmith was an extra favour. Actually, this firm was not the one Pond himself consorted with. He never gave their number to anyone, nor would they have welcomed it. Rather curiously, they were even less available, on the whole, than The Man. Nevertheless, the lesser firm was a good one. Pond believed he had not done Nick a bad turn, there.

Nor anywhere, really.

He had quite liked Nick. Even if the momentary swamp of sympathy was gone. Pond knew Nick meant nothing to him, rather in the way some painted landscape would not, like the look of it as Pond might. He would not really wish to holiday in such a spot. He would not, having turned from it, soon recall the colour tones of its stars or trees, the sound or spelling of its name. Pond could never have produced a son like Nick, let alone, however ardently gay either of them was, courted him for a lover. An Angela, a heavy drinker, a constant user of bad language, a murderess who would not even attempt the job herself, that was about as high as a guy like Pond would reach.

Epilogue

Winter

Alpha

Serena’s flat is not, technically, only ten minutes from Drury Lane. It lies walled up inside the ancient-and-modern of the Barbican. The high windows gaze on one side over the winter green lawns with fountains, and out to what Serena calls “Wren’s re-mix of St Paul’s” on the other. The daylight in the flat appears always polished clear, and warmly cold. By night the lit cathedral looks colder. It seems like a black-leaded glacier. At least, to him.

And who is he? He himself feels he no longer knows. Nor can (or will) any of them really tell him.

“It’s a lovely day. Blue sky, chilly and still. Shall we go for a walk?”

“Yes. You go.”

“Oh Nick,” she says, looking at him lovingly sadly. “You must try.”

“Must I?”

“You know you must. Moderate exercise. They told you. They told me…”

“Yes, Serena. I was there.”

“No, not quite. You weren’t quite there. You’re not now.”

“They told you about that too.”

“And I offered you my perfectly brilliant shrink and you said…”

“Serena, please…”

“That you didn’t want any of that. But you are still in this state.”

“I’m sorry if it inconveniences you. Shall I just leave? I’m fine.” Nick hears himself, it is another man talking, mild, quite reasonable. Perhaps always himself?

“So you’re so fine you won’t even walk round the gardens with me. You just sit. How could you cope with leaving, and anyway you sold your flat, you