The Vampyre (2 page)

Rebecca smiled bleakly. ‘How can you ask me that?'

‘Because I wonder what secret these memoirs contained. What secret so terrible that even Lord Byron's closest friends thought it best to destroy all records of it.'

‘Not all records, Mr Melrose.'

‘No.' He paused. ‘No, maybe not. And so - I am agitated.'

To his surprise, Rebecca did not smile at his words. Instead, she leaned across the desk, and took his hand. ‘Agitated by what, Mr Melrose? Tell me. Lord Byron has been dead for almost two hundred years. What is there to be agitated by?'

‘Miss Carville.' The lawyer paused, and grimaced, then shook his head. ‘Miss Carville . . .' He gestured with his hands. ‘Forget everything else I have been saying. Please - just listen to what I tell you now. Here is the situation. I am legally obliged to withhold the keys. There is nothing I can do about that. It may seem strange that the public be barred from church, but it is the legal position nevertheless. The right of entry to the chapel belongs exclusively to the heir to the Ruthven estate, to him, and to other direct descendants of the first Lord Ruthven. It is for them alone that I hold the keys to St Jude's, as my predecessors in this firm, for almost two hundred years, have similarly held the keys. So far as I know, the chapel is never used for worship, or indeed opened at all. I could, I suppose, put forward your name to the present Lord Ruthven, but I must be frank with you, Miss Carville - that is something I shall never do.'

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. ‘Why not?'

Melrose watched her. ‘There are many reasons why not,' he said slowly. ‘The simplest is that there would be no point. Lord Ruthven would never reply.'

‘Ah. So he does exist, then?'

Melrose's frown deepened. ‘Why do you ask that?'

Rebecca shrugged. ‘I tried to see him before coming to see you. The fact that I'm sitting here now suggests what success I had.'

‘He is not often in residence here, I believe. But oh yes, Miss Carville - he exists.'

‘You've met him?'

Melrose nodded. ‘Yes.' He paused. ‘Once.'

‘No more than that?'

‘Once was quite enough.'

‘When?'

‘Does it matter?'

Rebecca nodded wordlessly. Melrose studied her face. It seemed frozen again and emotionless, but in her eyes, he could see a deep-burning gleam. He leaned back in his chair. ‘It was twenty years ago, almost to the day,' he said. ‘I remember it vividly.'

Rebecca leaned forwards on the edge of her seat. ‘Go on,' she said.

‘I should not be telling you this. A client has the right to confidentiality.'

Rebecca smiled faintly, mockingly. Melrose knew that she recognised he wanted to talk. He cleared his throat. ‘I had just been made a partner,' he said. ‘The Ruthven estate was one of my responsibilities. Lord Ruthven phoned me. He wanted to talk with me. He insisted I visit him in Fairfax Street. He was a rich and valued client. I went, of course.'

‘And?'

Again, Melrose paused. ‘It was a very strange experience, ' he said at last. ‘I am not an impressionable man, Miss Carville, I do not usually speak in subjective terms, but his mansion filled me with - well - there's no other way to put it - with the most remarkable sense of uneasiness. Does that sound strange? Yes, of course it does, but I can't help it, that's how it was. In the course of my visit, Lord Ruthven showed me the chapel of St Jude's. There, too, I was conscious of an almost physical dread, catching at my throat, choking me. And so you see, Miss Carville, it is for your own sake I am glad you won't be visiting there - yes - for your own sake.'

Rebecca smiled again faintly. ‘But was it the chapel,' she asked, ‘or Lord Ruthven, who unsettled you so much?'

‘Oh, both I think, both. Lord Ruthven I found - indefinable. There was a grace to him, yes, a real grace, and a beauty too . . .'

‘Except?'

‘Except . . .' Melrose frowned. ‘Yes - except . . . that in his face, like his house, there was the same quality of danger.' He paused. ‘The same - funereal gleam. We didn't talk long - by mutual consent - but in that time, I was aware of a great mind grown cancerous, calling for help I would almost have said, except that . . . No, no.' Melrose suddenly shook his head. ‘What nonsense am I talking? Lawyers have no right to be imaginative.'

Rebecca smiled faintly. ‘But was it imagination?'

Melrose studied her face. It seemed suddenly very pale. ‘Maybe not,' he said quietly.

‘What had he wanted to talk to you about?'

‘The keys.'

‘To the chapel?'

Melrose nodded.

‘Why?'

‘He told me not to surrender them to anyone.'

‘Not even to those who were entitled to them?'

‘They were to be discouraged.'

‘But not forbidden?'

‘No. Discouraged.'

‘Why?'

‘He didn't say. But as he talked to me, I felt a presentiment of . . . of . . . of something terrible.'

‘What?'

‘I couldn't describe it, but it was real' - Melrose looked around - ‘as real as the figures on this computer screen, or the papers in this file. And Lord Ruthven too - he seemed afraid . . . No - not afraid, but appalled, and yet all the time, you see, it was mingled with a terrible desire, I could see it burning in his eyes, and so I took his warning to heart, because what I'd glimpsed in his face had horrified me. I hoped, of course, that no one would ask me for the keys.' He paused. ‘Then three days later, a Miss Ruthven came to call.'

Rebecca's face betrayed not a flicker of surprise. ‘For the keys?' she asked.

Melrose leaned back in his chair. ‘The same as you. She wanted to find the memoirs of Lord Byron hidden in the crypt.'

Still Rebecca's face seemed passionless. ‘And you gave them to her?' she asked.

‘I had no choice.'

‘Because she was a Ruthven?'

Melrose nodded.

‘And yet now you want to try to stop me?'

‘No, Miss Carville, it is not a matter of trying. I
will
stop you. I will not give you the keys.' Melrose stared into Rebecca's narrowing eyes. He looked away, rising to his feet, crossing to a window and the darkness out beyond. ‘She vanished,' he said at last, not turning round. ‘A few days after I gave her the keys. The police never found her. There was never anything, of course, to link her disappearance with Lord Ruthven, but I remembered all he had said, and what I had glimpsed in his face. I didn't tell the police - afraid of seeming ridiculous, you understand - but with you, Miss Carville, I am prepared to risk seeming comical.' He turned round to face her again. ‘Go away. It's getting late. I'm afraid our meeting has come to an end.'

Rebecca didn't move. Then slowly, she smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘The keys are mine,' she said unblinkingly.

Melrose raised his arms in anger and frustration. ‘Didn't you hear what I said? Can't you understand?' He slumped into his chair. ‘Miss Carville, please, don't be difficult. Just go, before I have to ring for you to be taken away.'

Rebecca shook her head gently. Melrose sighed, and reached across his desk to press an intercom. As he did so, Rebecca took a second sheaf of papers from her bag. She pushed them across the desk. Melrose glanced at them, then froze. He took up the first page and began to skim down it, glassily, as though unable, or unwilling, to read it through. He muttered something, then pushed the papers away from him. He sighed and for a long time said nothing more. At last, he shook his head and sighed a second time. ‘So, she was your mother, then?'

Rebecca nodded. ‘She kept her maiden name. I took my father's.'

Melrose breathed in deeply. ‘Why didn't you say?'

‘I wanted to know what you thought.'

‘Well, you know. Keep away from Fairfax Street.'

Rebecca smiled. ‘You're not serious,' she said, then laughed. ‘You can't be.'

‘Would it make any difference if I say again that I am?'

‘No. None at all.'

Melrose stared at her, then nodded. ‘Very well, then,' he said. ‘If you insist, I'll have the keys brought to you.' He pressed a button. There was no response. ‘Must be later than I'd realised,' he muttered, rising to his feet. ‘If you'll excuse me, Miss Carville.' Rebecca watched him as he left his office, and the doors glided shut. She began to gather her papers together. Her certificates she slipped back into her bag; the bundle of letters she kept on her lap. She fiddled with them; then, as she heard the doors behind her opening again, she laid her slim fingers on the edge of the desk.

‘Here,' said Melrose, holding out three keys on a large brass ring.

‘Thank you,' said Rebecca. She waited to be given them, but the lawyer, as he stood by her, still kept the keys clutched tightly in his hand.

‘Please,' said Rebecca. ‘Give them to me, Mr Melrose.'

Melrose made no answer at first. He stared into Rebecca's face, long and hard, then he reached for the bundle of letters on her lap. ‘These,' he said, holding them up, ‘the mysterious letters - they were your mother's originally?'

‘I believe so.'

‘What do you mean, believe?'

Rebecca shrugged. ‘I was approached by a bookseller. He had been sold them. Apparently, it was well known that they had once been my mother's.'

‘And so then he came to you?'

Rebecca nodded.

‘Very honest of him.'

‘Maybe. I paid.'

‘But how had he got them? And how had your mother lost the letters in the first place?'

Rebecca shrugged. ‘I think the bookseller had received them from a private collector. Beyond that, he didn't know. I didn't press.'

‘Weren't you interested?'

‘They must have been stolen, I suppose.'

‘What? After your mother - disappeared?'

Rebecca glanced up at him. Her eyes glittered. ‘Possibly,' she said.

‘Yes.' Melrose paused. ‘Possibly.' He studied the letters again. ‘They are genuine?' he asked, looking back down at them.

‘I think so.'

‘But you can't be sure?'

Rebecca shrugged. ‘I'm not qualified to say.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, I'd assumed . . .'

‘I am an Orientalist, Mr Melrose - it was my mother who was the Byron scholar. I've always read Byron, out of respect for her memory, but I have no claims to be an expert.'

‘I see. My mistake.' Melrose stared at the letters again. ‘And so I suppose - this respect for your mother's memory - is that why you're so eager to track down the memoirs?'

Rebecca smiled faintly. ‘It would be fitting, don't you think? I never knew my mother, you see, Mr Melrose. But I feel - what I'm doing - she would approve of it, yes.'

‘Even though the search may well have killed her?'

Rebecca's brow darkened. ‘Do you really think that, Mr Melrose?'

He nodded. ‘Yes, I do.'

Rebecca looked away. She stared into the darkness of the night beyond the windows. ‘Then at least I would know what had happened to her,' she said, almost to herself.

Melrose made no answer. Instead, he dropped the letters back into Rebecca's lap. Still, though, he didn't give her the keys.

Rebecca held out her hand. Melrose stared at it thoughtfully. ‘And so all along,' he said softly, ‘you were a Ruthven. All along.'

Rebecca shrugged. ‘I can't help my blood.'

‘No.' Melrose laughed. ‘Of course you can't.' He paused. ‘Isn't there a Ruthven Curse?' he asked.

‘Yes.' Rebecca narrowed her eyes as she looked up at him. ‘There's supposed to be.'

‘How does it work?'

‘I don't know. The usual way, I guess.'

‘What? Ruthven after Ruthven - generation after generation - all felled by some mysterious power? Isn't that the legend?'

Rebecca ignored the question. She shrugged again. ‘Lots of aristocratic families can lay claim to a curse. It's nothing. A sign of breeding, if you like.'

‘Exactly.'

Rebecca frowned again. ‘What do you mean?'

Melrose laughed again. ‘Why, that it's all in the blood, of course. All in the blood!' He spluttered and choked, then continued to laugh.

‘You're right,' said Rebecca, rising to her feet, ‘for a lawyer, you are too imaginative.' She held out her hand. ‘Mr Melrose - give me the keys.'

Melrose stopped laughing. He clutched the keys in his palm. ‘You are quite sure?' he asked.

‘Quite sure.'

Melrose gazed deep into her eyes, then his shoulders slumped, and he leaned against the desk. He held out the keys.

Rebecca took them. She slipped them into her pocket.

‘When will you go?' Melrose asked.

‘I don't know. Sometime soon, I expect.'

Melrose nodded slowly, as though to himself. He returned to his chair. He watched as Rebecca crossed the office to the doors.

‘Miss Carville!'

Rebecca turned.

‘Don't go.'

Rebecca stared at the lawyer. ‘I must,' she said at last.

‘For your mother's sake? But it is for your mother's sake that I'm asking you not to go!'

Rebecca made no answer. She looked away. The doors slid open. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Melrose,' she said, turning back round. ‘Goodnight.'

Melrose stared after her with defeated eyes. ‘Goodnight,' he said. ‘Goodnight.' And then the doors slid shut, and Rebecca was on her own. She hurried towards a waiting lift. Behind her, the doors of the office stayed closed.