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There was no television in the cottage—Hanson the Hateful claimed the weight of an aerial would damage the chimney—so she listened to the radio as she usually did, then went to bed.
And, for the first time in over a year, she found herself having the dream.
As always there was music playing, somewhere in the distance, and she was floating, weightless, on a bed of clouds, spinning slowly and gently in a gigantic circle, singing softly to herself. There were faces looking down at her, all smiling, and she smiled back, comforted by love and approval, until she saw that all the faces were masked and the smiles painted on, and she tried to run away, and they held her down, their laughter echoing thinly from behind the masks, drowning the music.
And then they all vanished, and he was there—the Dark Lord—staring at her with eyes so cold that they burned.
Shouting at her with words that made no sense, but she knew were full of hatred and contempt.
Threatening her, frightening her with his anger. His disgust.
And she suddenly realised that she was naked and tried to cover herself with her hands, but they were clamped to her sides, and she was spinning again, faster and faster, sinking backwards into some void, trying to hide from the ice and fire of the Dark Lord’s eyes. But knowing that there was no escape.
She awoke, sobbing helplessly as she always did, her whole body bathed in sweat.
When she’d regained control, she lay quietly, staring into the darkness, wondering what had prompted a recurrence of her nightmare.
Fitton Magna, she thought, wincing. Tara had said she lived there. That must have been the reason.
But why did it still have to happen? It was six years ago, after all, that devastating, humiliating night. Wasn’t it time she laid the memory of it to rest? Surely she wasn’t going to be haunted like this for the rest of her life?
The sooner I get away from this whole area and make a completely fresh start, she told herself, the better it will be.
The following day was Friday and market day, and the tea rooms were extra busy.
As the afternoon wore on Phoebe cleared the corner table by the window and put a RESERVED notice on it.
And won’t I look a fool if she doesn’t turn up? she thought.
But, sure enough, Tara made her appearance at the usual time, and seemed sedately pleased that Phoebe had kept a space for her.
‘What’s it to be today?’ Phoebe smiled down at her. ‘Hot milk again? And Mrs Preston’s made some chocolate muffins.’
Tara’s eyes sparkled. ‘Yes, please.’
For a child who seemed to be bringing herself up, she had lovely manners, Phoebe thought as she went to get the order.
After that there was another rush of customers, and it was an hour later that she finally had time to realise that Tara was still sitting at the corner table, staring forlornly through the window.
She checked beside her. ‘I’m sorry, poppet. Did you want to pay?’
The child shook her head, looking down and biting her lip. ‘I can’t. Cindy didn’t give me any money today. She said I had to wait here instead until she came. Only she hasn’t,’ she added on a little wail.
‘Don’t get upset.’ Phoebe passed her a clean paper napkin. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay the bill for you, and Cindy can settle with me. How’s that?’
Tara shook her head. ‘We can’t do that. I don’t know where she is.’
‘Well, she can’t be too far away. She knows you’re waiting.’ Phoebe tried to sound casual. ‘Is she out with her boyfriend again?’
Tara’s eyes looked very big in her small face. ‘You aren’t meant to know about him. No one is. She’ll be cross if she thinks I’ve told.’
‘Well, you haven’t,’ Phoebe said cheerfully. ‘So that’s all right. Now, you stay right there, and I’ll bring you another muffin. And by the time you’ve eaten it Cindy will be here for you.’
‘What’s going on?’ Lynn mouthed as she dashed past with a loaded tray.
‘Cindy—no show,’ Phoebe returned succinctly, and Lynn’s brows shot up to her hairline.
But, in spite of her optimistic forecast, no one tall, blonde and Australian arrived at the tea rooms, and it was rapidly approaching closing time.
‘Call the police,’ said Lynn. ‘That’s what Mrs Preston would say.’
‘I can’t,’ Phoebe protested. ‘She’s upset enough as it is, poor little devil. It could create all kinds of repercussions.’
Lynn sighed. ‘Then what are you going to do?’
Phoebe took a deep breath. ‘I’ll take her home myself. And hopefully give Cindy, and this absentee father of hers, a piece of my mind in the process.’
‘You can’t just walk off with someone’s child. Otherwise it will be you the police will be calling on.’
‘That’s a risk I’ll have to take.’ Phoebe looked at the clock above the kitchen door. ‘And why isn’t there a search party out for her anyway? No, I’ve got to do it, Lynn. I’ve got to see her home safely and talk to someone in authority about what’s been going on.’
Lynn shook her head. ‘Rather you than me.’
As Phoebe had expected, Tara was reluctant to accompany her.
‘No, I’ve got to wait for Cindy.’ Her bottom lip jutted ominously.
‘But the café is closing for the night,’ Phoebe told her gently. ‘If Cindy comes it will be all dark and locked up.’
‘Then I’ll sit in her car and wait.’
Over my dead body, Phoebe returned silently. Aloud, she said, ‘Let’s go and see if it’s still where she parked it, shall we?’
The main car park was emptying fast, and the white Peugeot 205 was standing in the middle, in splendid isolation. It was also securely locked, which Phoebe secretly regarded as a bonus under the circumstances.
However, she was getting more concerned about Cindy’s non-appearance by the minute.
‘Perhaps her boyfriend’s motorbike’s had a puncture,’ she suggested neutrally. ‘Whatever, there’s no point hanging round here in the cold and dark. We’ll go round to the bus station and find out when there’s one to Fitton Magna.’
But here too she drew a blank. Buses to Fitton Magna, she learned, were thin on the ground. There was one return trip mid-morning and mid-afternoon each day. And a market day special which she’d missed as well.
‘Right,’ Phoebe said breezily, thanking her stars she’d been paid at lunchtime. ‘We’ll get a taxi.’
Even if the people at the other end weren’t very pleased with what she had to say, they would at least reimburse the fare to her—wouldn’t they?
‘Do you know the address?’ she asked, fixing Tara’s seat-belt.
‘Of course.’ The outraged note was back, if a little wobbly. ‘It’s North Fitton House.’
‘Would that be on the Midburton Road?’ the driver asked as he started the engine.
‘I don’t know,’ Phoebe confessed. ‘I’ve never been there.’ At least, I hope I haven’t, she amended silently. ‘Is it, Tara?’
‘I think so.’ The little girl didn’t sound any too sure.
‘Well, Fitton Magna isn’t exactly big. Reckon we’ll find it,’ said the driver.
It was a placid drive through the dark lanes, but, all the same, Phoebe could feel tension rising inside her. Beside her, Tara was very quiet. Perhaps too quiet?
I don’t really know anything about her, Phoebe realised ruefully. Certainly not enough to go charging in and taking over like this. Lynn was right. I should have stayed out of it. Handed the whole mess over to the police or Social Services.
What do I do if there’s no one at her home either? Why didn’t I think things through?
There was a muffled sound beside her, as if Tara was choking back a sob, and Phoebe reached out and took a small, cold, shaking hand, squeezing it comfortingly.
‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ she whispered. ‘Trust me.’
Knowing, even as she spoke, that in truth she could guarantee nothing.
They were coming to a scatter of houses, lights gleaming behind curtained windows, and Phoebe felt an icy fist clench in her stomach.
Any moment now, she thought, and she might find herself back at the place where the actual scenario of her nightmare had been played out.
But maybe that was what she needed—to go back and exorcise this particular demon once and for all. Let herself see that it was all in the past. That, even if it was the same house where she’d been so bitterly humiliated, the people had changed. Because Tara’s name was Vane, and no one called that had been involved.
I would, she told herself, have remembered that.
Ashton, she thought. Dominic Ashton. That had been his name. No Dark Lord of her overheated imagination, but a normal man caught off-guard and reacting furiously to a shameful, tasteless joke.
Who was now somewhere else, living his perfectly normal life, and who had probably never given the incident another thought. Whose biting mouth would twist sardonically in disbelief at the possibility that she could still be tormented by her memories.
It doesn’t matter any more, she told herself, drawing a deep breath. I can’t afford to let it.
‘Well, this is it,’ the taxi driver announced.
Leaning forward, Phoebe saw NORTH FTTTON HOUSE inscribed on the gate pillar, and, glancing up, the stone gryphon which crowned it. Quite unforgettably.
‘Yes,’ she said tonelessly. ‘This is the place. Could you drive up to the door, please, and wait for me?’
Tara was reluctant to leave the taxi. ‘They’re going to be so angry.’ Her voice caught on a sob.
‘But not with you,’ Phoebe said bracingly. ‘Or they’ll have me to deal with.’
She walked forward up the two shallow steps flanked by stone urns, bare now with the onset of winter. On her last visit they’d been a vibrant, sprawling mass of colour which had matched the light and warmth spilling out of the house and her own inner excitement about the party she’d been going to. The man she’d been going to see.
‘Sweet Phoebe.’ She could hear his voice whispering to her persuasively, overcoming her scruples. ‘Promise me you’ll be there.’
And I went, Phoebe thought as she rang the bell. Like a lamb to the slaughter.
After a pause, the door was opened by a stout, white-haired woman wearing a dark dress and a neat apron.
‘Good evening.’ She sounded surprised. ‘Can I help...?’ Her gaze fell on Tara, clinging to Phoebe’s hand, and her hand flew to her mouth.
‘Oh, my God, it’s the little one. You should have been home hours ago, you naughty girl. I was just going to take your supper up to the nursery. And where’s that Cindy, may I ask?’
‘You may indeed,’ Phoebe said quietly, leading Tara into the hall. ‘I’ve brought Tara home from the café where I work. There seems to have been some mistake over the arrangements to collect her.’
‘Mistake,’ the other woman repeated. ‘And what was Miss Tara doing in a café, I’d like to know? From school to her piano lesson, and then straight home. That’s her routine.’
‘Apparently not.’ Phoebe gave her a level look. ‘You mentioned supper, which is a splendid idea. Tara’s had rather a trying time, as you can imagine.’
‘Well, yes.’ The woman looked helplessly from one to the other. ‘I don’t know what to say, I’m sure.’
‘If you could take her upstairs, and see to her.’ Phoebe urged the child gently forward. ‘Go on, poppet, and I’ll come and say goodbye once I’ve spoken to your father.’ She turned to the other woman. ‘I presume he’s here.’
‘Yes, miss, but he’s working in his study.’ The woman glanced uneasily at a door on the right of the large hall. ‘Left strict instructions he wasn’t to be disturbed.’
‘I’m sure he did,’ Phoebe said with a lightness she was far from feeling. ‘But I think this is an emergency, don’t you?’
And she walked past them both, opened the study door and went in.
It was a room she remembered only vaguely, with its book-lined walls and the large desk standing in the centre of the room.
He was standing with his back to her, intent on a fax machine delivering a message on a side table.
When he spoke, his voice was clipped with impatience. ‘Carrie, I thought I said—’
‘It’s not Carrie, Mr Vane.’ The anger which had been seething in Phoebe came boiling to the surface. ‘I’ve just brought your daughter back from Westcombe, where she’d been abandoned, and I’d like to know whether you’re just totally selfish or criminally irresponsible.’
He turned slowly. The grey eyes travelled over her without haste. Like ice that burned. She had thought it then. She knew it now.
She gave a gasp, and stepped backwards.
‘I don’t know who the hell you are, bursting in and abusing me like this.’ Every word was like the slash of a whip. ‘But you’ve made a big mistake, young woman.’
He paused, taking in every detail from the top of the smooth brown head, down over her working uniform of white shirt and brief black skirt, to her slender feet in their sensible shoes. Registering it all, then dismissing it with the contempt that she remembered so vividly from six years before.
He said softly, ‘My name is Ashton. Dominic Ashton. Now, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you out.’
CHAPTER TWO
PHOEBE wanted to run away, harder and faster than she’d ever done in her life. But for dazed seconds she wasn’t able to move, or think. She could only stare at him. At the nightmare made flesh, and standing in front of her.
He’d hardly changed at all. She was capable of recognising that, at least. The thick dark hair, untouched by grey, still waved untidily back from its widow’s peak. He would never be handsome. His nose was too beaky, his mouth and chin too firmly uncompromising, and the grey eyes under the cynically lifted eyebrows too piercing. But he was even more of a force to be reckoned with than at their last disastrous encounter.
She was the one who’d changed, she realised with a reviving jolt of the same anger which had driven her into this room. She wasn’t a naive, betrayed sixteen-year-old any longer.
The real vulnerable child was upstairs, and she was all that mattered in this situation.
