Shadowy Horses (6 page)

I failed to grasp the connection. "Rosehill?"

"Not after roses," he explained. "There's not a rose in sight, and I have it on good authority that there never have been roses here. No, one of the locals told me that this used to be called 'Rogue's Hill,' until the seventeenth century, when the house was built. The family didn't care for the name, I suppose. Wanted something more genteel. So Rosehill it became."

"But I don't quite understand," I said, "how even 'Rogue's Hill' ..."

"Well, there weren't any rogues, either, that's the point. Not even so much as a hanging tree. But," he added, "it struck me that the word 'rogues' could have been derived from
ragus."

Beside me, the cat started upright as though I had slapped it. Sending me a quick look of alarm it leapt to the carpet and vanished beneath the leather sofa.
"Rogus,'
I repeated, slowly. The Latin word for "funeral pyre."

It was a possibility. Place names could often give one dues about the past, and if the Ninth Legion had, in fact, perished here, there would of course be bodies, thousands of them—or ashes ... Did the Romans still cremate their dead, in the reign of Hadrian? I was struggling to remember, when Quinnell's quiet voice interrupted my thoughts.

"I must admit, I chose you for your name, as well."

"I'm sorry?"

"Verity." He smiled. "The truth. It's what we're searching for this season, here at Rosehill. It's what I hope to find. And I thought, if you would join us ... well, I rather viewed
you as a talisman, you see. A good luck charm."

Damn the Irish, I thought. They could be so incredibly persuasive. Stoutly, I reminded myself that he'd given me the weekend to decide, and this was only Friday afternoon. Plenty of time to consider things, before I gave my answer. Atop the bookshelf by Quinnell's shoulder, the black cat Murphy stirred and stretched and stared at me with placid, knowing eyes.
You're going to say yes, anyway,
he seemed to be saying.
You like the old man, you haven't the heart to refuse him.
Which was quite right, of course, but still, I wanted to wait a day or so, to make it appear that I'd given the matter some thought.

Quinnell leaned forward again and reached for the teapot. "No need to make your mind up yet," he said. "Here, have another biscuit." He offered the plate with a casual hand, but his eyes, like the cat's, sensed victory, and I knew full well that when I finally answered "yes" on Sunday, when I finally accepted the job, it would come as no surprise to Peter Quinnell.

I sighed, and took a biscuit, and the black cat closed its eyes.

VI

The train lurched sideways and slowed, and my nodding head bounced against the window as we rattled over the points. Above me a speaker popped with static and a cheerful voice announced that we would shortly be arriving at Berwick, and would I please remember to take all my belongings with me, when I left the train.

Forcing myself awake, I rose to stand in the swaying aisle, steadying myself between the seats. The woman behind me looked up and smiled. "Good thing you woke up," she said, kindly. "The train doesn't stop again till Dunbar."

I smiled back. "Yes, I know." And I had no intention of repeating my ordeal of... heavens, had it only been a week ago? It seemed longer. But no, it had definitely been last Thursday, and now here I was on the following Friday, taking the same train north, having settled my affairs in London and packed enough clothing to see me through the summer season at Rosehill.

Well actually, I conceded, as I edged my way along the aisle, my sister Alison had done most of the packing. Very organized, was Alison, which explained why I was lumbered with three suitcases. The smallest, the size of a briefcase, was for toiletries; the next largest held shoes and odd-shaped
things, and then came a giant-sized one that I felt sure contained my entire wardrobe. I was half afraid to look. Together the three cases took up nearly the whole of the racks at the end of the second-class carriage.

They were murder to move. Even the porter, who'd offered to help, looked rather winded by the time he'd wrestled the last case down onto the platform. "D'ye need..." he wheezed, then sucked in air and tried again, "d'ye need a hand up the stairs?" It was gallant of him to offer, but I shook my head.

"No thanks, I'm being met." I released him with a generous tip, and settled down to wait for Adrian.

Behind me the train slid smoothly out of the station, leaving me in peaceful silence, save for the occasional soft flutter of a pigeon flapping against the sheltering roof.

This was a pretty little station, open to the air and filled with sunlight; built upon the very spot, a sign assured me, Where once had stood the Great Hall of Berwick Castle. Half-closing my eyes, I tried to imagine the place without the trains, perhaps with stained glass coloring the strong afternoon sunlight, and a few hunting dogs dozing around the still smouldering hearth. I was about to add the people, men in doublets and soft leather breeks and ladies in whispering gowns, when an all too familiar voice hauled me ruthlessly back to the present.

"Good God!" Adrian stared in horror at the mammoth suitcase. "What
have
you got in that?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. Alison packed it. Her way of thanking me, for letting her have the flat this summer."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're trusting your flat to a university student? That's awfully liberal of you, isn't it? All those wild parties..."

"What, Alison? Don't be daft. She'd never think to throw a wild party. In fact," I told him, grinning, "she'll very likely see to it my neighbors don't throw any, either." Alison had always been the responsible one of the family. I knew she'd keep my plants watered and my windows clean and my salt cellars filled to the exact level at which I'd left them.

"Is she still in engineering?" Adrian asked me, and I nodded.

"One more year to go. She's got a job lined up for the summer with a firm in Westminster, so the flat will be perfect for her. She won't have to waste all that time on the tube. And she'll take good care of my things."

"She seems to have sent most of them up here with you," he commented, looking down again at the suitcases.

"Oh, that's just Alison. She believes in being prepared. She'll have put an evening dress in there, and probably my winter coat..."

"Pity she didn't think to include a small pack mule," Adrian quipped, testing the weight of the biggest case. "Christ, you're sure this is only clothes?"

"Pretty sure. Why?"

"Do you have any idea how heavy it is?"

Patiently, I reminded him that I knew precisely how heavy it was. "I dragged it all around King's Cross station, on my. own. So a big strong man like you should have no problem."

"Why is it," he wanted to know, as he hoisted the case a few inches off the platform, "that women only call us big and strong when they want us to do something?''

I shrugged. "Men like lifting things. It makes them feel useful."

"Is that a fact? Then hand me that little one, as well... no, not that one, the
little
one. Right. The car park's this way."

In normal circumstances, it would have been a short walk up and over the tracks, and down again into the small station building, where a corner news-stand and a quiet information booth were the only diversions offered to the rail traveler. By the time we reached the car park, Adrian was breathing like a man who'd run a marathon. Shoulders heaving, he dropped my cases unceremoniously onto the pavement and sent me a murderous glance. "It's a good thing I brought this," he panted, nodding at the dark green Range Rover in front of us. "We'd never have been able to fit everything into my car."

"Does this belong to the boss, then?”

“More to the boss's granddaughter."

Lucky Fabia, I thought. I'd given up my own car ages ago. There was nowhere to garage a car where I lived, and parking in the city proved a constant headache. Easier to take the bus or the tube, and simply hire a car when needed. But I couldn't help running a covetous hand along the dashboard as I nestled into the passenger seat.

Adrian noticed, and smiled. "The advantages of being rich."

“Says the man who drives a Jaguar.''

"Yes, well." He shrugged modestly. "If I can't be rich, I might as well be stylish."

"You could always marry up. Fabia's rather young for you, perhaps, but—"

"Darling, I'm shocked," he cut me off, "that you would think I'd so much as notice another woman, now that you're here."

"Adrian."

"Yes, my love?"

"Don't be a brat."

Grinning, he buckled his safety belt and reversed neatly out of the car park.

The drive from Berwick to Eyemouth, along the motorway, took less than a quarter of an hour. Adrian tuned the radio in to a station playing something with a steady reggae beat, while I looked out the window, paying rather more attention to my thoughts than to the passing scenery.

"Doesn't David Fortune drive?" I asked suddenly, surprised to find I'd been thinking of him.

"What?"

"Well, he was on a bus when I met him, and last weekend he always seemed to be walking back and forth from town, so I just wondered ..."

"He has a little rusted Ford," said Adrian, to whom a car was a reflection of its owner's personality. "He still has teaching commitments, you know, at the university, so he's away up there most of the week, but he lets his mother have the car at weekends. Drops it off for her, usually, and then catches the bus back.”

“Oh." I thought about this. "You'd think his mother would have a car of her own, living where she does."

"I gather she doesn't want one."

"But surely ..."

"You haven't met Fortune's mother." Adrian's mouth quirked. "If she doesn't want one, then ... hang on a minute," he interrupted himself. Braking, he pointed out my window at a greening spinney on a distant hillside. "See that?" he asked me.

"What are you doing? We're going to get hit if you stop here... don't you remember last week's accident?"

"Yes, well, there isn't a lay-by, and I want to show you something."

"What?"

"Rosehill." He pointed again. "Just there. You can barely see it, for the trees."

I darted a doubtful glance at the empty road behind us, then looked where I was meant to. I could see the roof of Rose Cottage, and the darker shadow of the house behind the trees, and the green broad field that still betrayed no sign of what might lie beneath it.

It should have been a peaceful view, serene and pastoral, but it wasn't. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but for a moment I felt the faintest shiver of foreboding, as though the house itself was warning me of something yet to come. Something evil.

I looked away. "Yes, well, I've seen it now, so could we get a move on?"

"You needn't worry." He smiled as he depressed the accelerator. "I have orders to deliver you safe and sound, in time for tea."

For once, he was as good as his word. The front hall clock had only just begun to chime half-past three when Quinnell came to meet us.

"Verity, my dear, how good to have you back again. We're just having drinks in the sitting room, do come through." Extending a fatherly arm to guide me, he raised a mild eyebrow in Adrian's direction. "What, you haven't brought her cases?"

"You haven't seen her cases," Adrian countered. "It's a miracle I got them this far."

"Heavy, are they? Well, then." Quinnell smiled sympathy, and led us through into the sitting room—not his cozy, red-walled room, but the one directly opposite, across the hall. His "posh" sitting room he'd called it on my first visit to Rosehill, and now I saw quite clearly what he'd meant.

The red sitting room, with its soft leather furniture and fading chintz curtains and shelves stuffed full of books, was designed for comfort. The posh sitting room was designed to impress.

Its walls had been papered in green, a soft sea green with pale pink roses twining upwards in a tangled pattern. Cream-colored curtains hung sedately at either side of the two large windows looking over road and drive, respectively. White painted accents gleamed against the green—white window frames, white molded cornice and skirting-boards, white mantel over the fireplace on the far wall. And around the fireplace hung an arresting assortment of framed miniatures, to complete the
House and Garden
look.

The chairs arranged on the Oriental carpet were mostly covered in pink and green as well. Fabia Quinnell had curled herself into a dark green one that set off her fair hair to advantage, while David Fortune had chosen a worn armchair of an indeterminate dun color. It didn't quite match the room's decor, but then again, neither did he. The Scottish lairds of old, I thought, must have looked like that when forced to dally at the English court—rather as if they hoped a roaring good battle might erupt to break the tedium. It gave me a bit of a jolt to realize just how pleased I was to see him again, and his coolly polite greeting came as something of a disappointment.

"David," Quinnell said, "would you be kind enough to fetch Verity's cases, from the Range Rover? Adrian can't quite manage them, he says."

Adrian hastened to correct him. "I didn't say I couldn't manage—"

"No problem." David set his glass of Scotch down with
what appeared to be relief. "I'll be happy to fetch them. She's in the back room, is she? Right."

"Be careful with the big one," I advised, as he passed. "My sister packed it for me, and it's awfully heavy."

Adrian sent me a faintly accusing look as the front door slammed behind the big Scotsman. "Why is it that he gets a warning, when all I got was 'men like lifting things"?"

Fabia roused herself from the depths of what appeared to be a sulk, and sent him a guileless look. "Well, it's true, that. Men
do
like lifting things."

"So I'm told." Adrian nodded sagely. "It makes us feel useful, apparently."

"Not useful." Fabia wrinkled her nose, her mood improving. "No, I'd have said powerful. Virile. What do you think, Peter?"

Her grandfather's glance held amusement. "At my age, I'm afraid, one must prove one's manhood in less strenuous ways." He turned to me. "How was your journey up? All right?"

"I slept through most of it," I admitted, selecting an inviting-looking pink chair with a matching footstool. It felt heavenly to stretch out my legs after a day of travel.

Adrian crossed to the drinks cabinet, grinning. "She did that last time, did she tell you? Ended up in Dunbar." I settled back and let him relate the embarrassing anecdote, consoling myself with the knowledge that he was fixing me a drink while he talked. The front door slammed again, and we all four turned our heads as David passed by in the hall, carrying all three of my cases with obvious ease.

"Ah, well," sighed Adrian, lifting the bottle of gin in a toast of admiration, "who can compete with that?"

Quinnell subsided into a high-backed chair and swung one long leg over the other. "We can't all be virile, my boy. I say, while you're there, could you make me another as well?"

"You're out of vodka."

"Plenty more in the cellar. Fabia, my dear, would you run down and fetch me a bottle?"

Fabia rose obediently. I, for my part, simply took the drink
that Adrian handed me and settled back, flexing my cramped feet.

Ten minutes later, with the vodka duly fetched and poured and David Fortune reinstated in his chair beside the window, Quinnell looked around him with the air of one well satisfied. "Well," he said, raising his glass, "here's to finding the Ninth, or enough of the Ninth to make Connelly give us his blessing."