Enter Pale Death (2 page)

“Now, set the bone to one side to dry out and check in the morning that I’ve got it safely hidden away in my left pocket. It has to be the left because that’s the side the Devil favours or some such rot. The bone’s the important bit of the magic. Absolutely crucial! Nothing works without it.”

Grace dropped it onto the supper tray, turned her back on her mistress and made the sign of the cross over her chest. “Didn’t much care for the feel of that old toad bone in my hand, madam. Cold and soapy. It fair gave me the creeps.” Her voice was pitched unnaturally high with the strain of daring to disagree with her mistress. “Not sure we ought to be fiddling about with magic. It could all turn nasty.”

“Nonsense!
Untested
magic I would have no truck with, but I’ve seen this work with my own eyes. Magic? It’s practically science! I have my information and instruction from the very best practitioner. Neither of us must breathe a word, though, or we’ll have the clod-hopping peasantry of this whole benighted county vowing vengeance. Mum’s the word, Grace!”

Grace bit her lip and bobbed to show her understanding. Her city-bred mistress forgot—or didn’t care—that her maid was of Suffolk stock herself. She tinkered about for a few minutes more, the homely activity of spreading and slicing the gingerbread calming her. She began rather to enjoy herself, like a child at a dollies’
tea party. “There, that’s all done. It’s neat and in a hand-sized lump, but it’s a bit sticky. I’ll put it into one of these empty chemist’s bags so it won’t spoil the inside of your pocket.”

“Thank you, my dear. Put it away in the closet for the night, will you, and spray my pillows with rosewater. Then you may retire. It’s almost midnight! Leave the door unlocked so that you can come straight in without knocking in the morning. We don’t want to wake the whole house. Just be sure to wake me well before dawn.”

N
IGHTTIME SHOWERS HAD
left the ground sodden, and Grace was glad she’d had the forethought to search out a pair of gumboots in her mistress’s size in view of her destination. It was quite a hike down to the Home Farm, and at crack of dawn on a misty April morning, the stables were likely to be a bit nasty underfoot. The wind had turned at last, sending rainclouds racing away in tatters, and a slash of pink on the eastern horizon promised a fine fresh morning. In the darkness, Grace could only just make out her ladyship, but she could hear her clearly enough and cringed as she heard her hailing the two stable-boy escorts in her hunting-field voice. She was wearing a sensible riding outfit over which she’d flung a baggy waterproof cape with two large pockets.

The lads, blinking and bleary, answered up shyly, assuring her that all was ready. She turned with a triumphant smile, patted each pocket in a pantomime of exaggerated care for Grace’s benefit and gave a playful farewell flourish of her riding crop.

Grace, from the back doorstep, watched her mistress march off into the morning mist to perform her magic. The maid’s body twitched as training did battle with instinct; dutiful obedience helped her to fight back an almost uncontrollable urge to chase after her and somehow find the words that would persuade her to give up her mad scheme. Resentment and anger flared, and
thoughts beginning with “Serve her right if …” had to be quickly censored. The woman had no idea what she was dealing with, the danger she was running into. Grace had done her best. She’d always had her doubts but, this time, she’d taken advice from one who would know and acted on it. It wouldn’t be the first time the maid had deflected harm and criticism from the mistress and always without acknowledgement, let alone thanks.

A last flurry of rain came from nowhere to slap her face with cold reproof, and she hurried back inside to seek out warmth and companionship in the kitchen.

T
HE HORSES WERE
already awake, stamping and neighing gently, listening for the sounds of their grooms. The horsemen were as regular as clockwork and would be here to feed them their first bait of the day at five o’clock. The two lads collected gear from the tack room as they’d been told to and presented themselves, ready to harness the horse their mistress had picked out. She led them past the lines of saddle horses and through to the farthest corner of the cobbled stable yard where the farm horses were billeted. Eight magnificent Suffolk Punches, the pride of the Home Farm, held court here. Four matched pairs—expensively matched, all being of the coveted bright chestnut colour—would, by seven, be fed, brushed, harnessed up and turning out to work the fields.

The men were behind by a full week with harrowing the winter wheat, waiting for the chill east wind to stop scything in over the North Sea from Russia. The heavy horses, too, had had enough of this long winter. They had sensed the change in the wind and, raring to go, stepped up to their half-gates. Sleek, noble heads peered out, red-gold with intelligent eyes, welcoming the sounds of humans in the yard with a gentle whickering. The boys had grown up with these animals. They knew them as well as they knew their brothers and sisters. They started to count the
familiar faces: Boxer, Scot, Jolly, Joker, William and the two mares Blossom and Gypsy. Seven heads. The lads exchanged glances full of foreboding.

Number eight was refusing to show himself.

Her ladyship stopped in front of the last stall in the line. She held up a hand, and the little procession came to a halt.

They’d been praying that something or someone would intervene before she got this far, but here she was, only inches now from the Devil himself and half an hour to go before the horsemen came whistling down to work. The moment had come and the boys, brothers Sam and Tom Flowerdew, stood ashenfaced, twitching with a fear they were unable to express. They would normally not have ventured to say a word to their mistress on any subject and, if addressed directly, would have reddened and stumbled over their answer. Even so, pushed beyond the limits of reticence, the older of the two, Sam, burst out: “Beggin’ your pardon, missis, but ’es a right terror, that ’oss! ’Es new. Master not long bought ’un. We nivver so much as got a halter on ’im. ’E done for ’is leader, owd Jonas! Bit ’is ’and clear off to ’is elbow.”

“Terrible great yeller teeth ’e ’as!” Tom breathed in support of his brother.

“Then ’e put Reuben in ’orspital. Don’t you go near, missis!” Sam finished and fell silent.

This was the longest speech he’d ever made in his life, and he was horrified by his own boldness. The lady was well known in the county for her horsemanship. She was a fearless rider to hounds. No horse under her was ever known to refuse a fence, and all returned from the field in a lather of exhaustion. Just like her poor old husband, they joked in the village pub when they’d had one too many of Martha’s ales. Sam had gone too far, and now she’d probably sack him and his little brother for impertinence. Would her anger extend to their father? The old fellow
held a tied cottage on the estate. It went with his job on the land, and if he lost it, they’d all starve. They remembered what had happened to old Walter’s widow and her kids when she’d crossed her ladyship. The old bat had waited until the Master was away, then thrown the family out without notice.

But the lady didn’t seem to have retribution on her mind this morning. She was glowing with confidence, putting on a show, you might say, and the boys were her puzzled audience.

“Enough of that defeatist talk, you two! Jonas and Reuben clearly didn’t come properly prepared. Now, get behind me if you’re nervous. All you have to do is stand ready to put his harness on when I’ve finished speaking to him. What’s his name?”

“We call ’im Lucy, missis.”

“Lucy? I understood the new horse to be a stallion?”

“ ’Es that all right. Got all ’is bits and pieces. It’s short for … Lucifer.” He muttered the name under his breath. “But ’e don’t answer to it, ’cos we don’t say it out loud—it’d be like calling up … you-know-who, missis. We dussn’t go near. We ’as to lower ’is fodder and drink through the roof. Until the vet come with ’is gret big gun. Due tommorrer, Mr. Hartest is.”

“Well, Mr. Hartest and his great gun will find their services are no longer required. I want you to watch carefully what I’m about to do. In a few minutes we will have the head halter on him and he’ll be stepping out following me like a poodle on a lead. I intend to take him for a little promenade right up to the front door of the Hall to parade him for my husband and his guests. Such ones as are gathered at the breakfast table.” Lavinia peered at her wristwatch. “Good. We’re slightly ahead of ourselves. That will give me and Lucifer time to get acquainted. The gentlemen will soon be coming down to breakfast—there’s to be a shoot later on this morning.” She gave a laugh tinkling with good humour. “You boys will be the first to witness a Lady charming the Devil. You have my permission to pass the story round the village. In fact, I
insist that you do—none of your usual Suffolky bashfulness! Ready? Then draw back the bolts, stand clear and prepare to be amazed.”

The boys shot the bolts and hurried to obey the second command. They watched from behind the corn hutch as their mistress patted her left pocket, then fumbled about and extracted something from her right. Holding out what they took to be an offering for the horse, she moved confidently forward, cooing, “Come on, Lucifer, my beauty! See what a treat I have for you … Oh, don’t be shy … I won’t hurt you … Here, take it …”

The expected furious charge forward with pounding hooves and snapping teeth did not occur. For once, the horse hung back in his stall. Snorting and clattering, he appeared, if anything, to be moving backwards to avoid the cooing advance.

The boys flinched on hearing a shriek of protest as piercing as the unearthly screams you heard on butchering days round the back of the knacker’s yard at the end of the village. But their mistress paid no heed to the stallion’s distress and took another step forward, thrusting her hand towards his flaring nostrils. From the depths of the stall came the flash of eyes rolling in fear, a neck arched aggressively, ears flattened to the skull, the huge head stretched out parallel to the ground. The whole fury of the one-ton, seventeen-hand body seemed to be channelled through the bared and vicious teeth from which foam dripped in gobbets.

Tom began to sob. Sam put a protective arm round his brother’s thin shoulders and called out a last desperate warning.

A further harrowing scream followed, human this time, and the scream ended abruptly in a gurgle. The stallion appeared at the door of his stall, wild-eyed, the body of his mistress clamped by the neck between yellow teeth that opened a source for the runnels of blood and froth coursing down the folds of her cape. He shook her once, twice, as a terrier shakes
the life out of a rat at the harvest hunt, and dropped her onto the wet cobbles. For good measure, two massive, iron-shod feet reared up and smashed down on the already lifeless form.

CHAPTER 1

LONDON. JUNE 1933.

The card arrived at the breakfast table sealed in an unassuming brown business envelope delivered with the morning post. Catching sight of her name on it in handwriting she recognised as she sorted through the pile, Lily fished it out and put it with the rest of her mail. This consisted largely of unwanted advertising material coyly addressed to “The Lady of the House.” While her husband grunted and exclaimed over his own morning’s haul, Lily read her message, eyes widening briefly in excitement. She passed a hand delicately over her mouth to smother a deceiving yawn.

“Everything all right, Lily? You’re letting your egg congeal.”

“Not quite awake yet, darling.” She slipped the card back into its envelope and shuffled it in with the rest. She shrugged one shoulder. Nonchalant. Bored. “Here’s another invitation to buy one of those floor-cleaning machines from Harrods. Nothing personal—they seem to be targeting the housewives of Hampstead,” she murmured, passing over a flyer singing the praises of Mr. Hoover’s latest invention. “It beats as it sweeps as it cleans, apparently.”

Her husband sighed, took it dutifully and favoured it with a cursory look. He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Have you really read this, Lil? Look—it claims to work according to a new
cleaning principle:
positive agitation
. It beats out the dirt and extracts the whole unpleasant mess, leaving behind a fresh home you can be proud of. I’m all for a little positive agitation! I shall adopt it as my motto.” He returned, still chuckling, to his own correspondence.

“We could do with a new cleaner, but they are expensive. I’ll see what Emma thinks. She’s getting a bit cronky—had you noticed?—and could do with a bit of extra help.” Lily peered across the table at her husband’s copy of the
Times
, lying open at the sports page, and read the headlines upside-down with no difficulty. “Gracious! Can Middlesex possibly have lost to Yorkshire? Again?”

She listened with half an ear to the genial huffing and puffing and the sporting explanations that followed her attempt to distract, preoccupied by the words she’d just read. In black ink, chiselled characters on a white card:

My office. 9:00 Tuesday. I have a problem I’d like you to help me with. S
.

Waylaid by memories, Lily fought back a smile and lowered her eyes to her plate in case they were shining with more emotion than could reasonably be accounted for by a congealed egg.

Her husband rumbled on companionably, reminding her quite unnecessarily of his imminent business trip, as he called his secretive forays into Europe. “Packing coming along is it?… Good … I say—it’s beginning to look more like ten days now with this excursion into the Black Forest. Ugh! Pop two extra ties in, will you, love? Oh, and shove in a pair of long-johns—we’re promised a flight in an aeroplane. Nasty, draughty things, aeroplanes.”

“Yes, dear. Will six pairs of underpants do? There’s bound to be an in-house laundry service. Browning or Beretta? I wasn’t sure, so I’ve left that for you to decide.”

“Oh, Browning I think. I’m hardly likely to use it, so I may as well impress them with the bulk. German military tailoring hardly
minimises the size of the opposition’s bulges; in fact, I think that’s the point of it. They’ll be eyeing up my Browning while I’m admiring their Lugers. Both useless for close-up work. On second thought, I’ll pop the Beretta in there as well. Don’t bother with hats, darling. I’m planning to buy something suitable when I get to Berlin. Bit of local cover called for—don’t want to be taken for an Englishman on holiday. Would you find me fetching in a green felt Tyrolean with a feather in the side? What do you say, Lil? Lil? Are you listening?”