'You okay?' he asked. He thought there was apprehension in her expression when she looked towards the house, but it may only have been nervousness, a delayed reaction perhaps to their experience earlier.
'What? Oh yes. Yes. I'm fine.' She stiffened, finding her strength, and he let go of her arm. 'Thank you for what you did back there. You acted quickly.'
'We'll discuss it inside. You look as though you could do with a stiff drink.' Kline was watching them across the roof of the car. 'Corn needs no excuse for that, Halloran. I bet even you could use one after that nasty little business.' He was smiling gleefully, his earlier panic obviously forgotten.
'Let's move inside as quickly as possible,' said Halloran, scanning the road they had just travelled as well as the surrounding area.
'No need to worry,' Kline assured him. 'Not here, not inside the estate.'
'I wouldn't be too sure of that,' Halloran replied.
'Oh, but I am. Completely. Nothing can touch me here.'
'Then humour me. Let's go in.' The Arabs and Monk followed behind with the luggage, although Halloran retrieved a black bag himself. They crossed the uneven paving inside the porch and entered the house. Halloran found himself inside a large hall, a coolness rapidly descending upon him as if it had pounced; directly opposite the main door was a screen of linenfoid panelling, above that a minstrels'
gallery, stout oak beams set in the walls and rising to the high bowed ceiling. A broad stairway led to the floor above from where diamond-paned windows provided inadequate light.
'Refreshments in the drawing room, Asil,' Kline snapped, stone floor and walls creating a hollowness to his words. 'Not for me, though. I've got things to do. Cora, you'll take care of our guest show him around the place.'
'We need to talk,' Halloran said quickly to Kline.
'Later. We'll talk all you want later.' He skipped up the stairway to their right, soft shoes almost silent against the wood. He turned back to them at the stairway's bend and leaned over the balustrade.
'Can you feel Neath's welcome, Halloran''' he said. 'The house senses you. can you feel that? And it's confused. It doesn't know if you're friend or foe. But you don't really know that yourself yet, do you?' He sniggered. 'Time will tell, Halloran. You'll be found out soon enough.' Kline continued his ascent leaving Halloran to stare after him.
13 CONVERSATION WITH CORA
From this level Neath resembled a small monastery, thought Halloran. Except that there was nothing godly about the place. The day had become overcast, clouds hanging low and dark over the Surrey hills, so that now the redness of Neath's stonework had become subdued, the floridity deepening to a tone that was like . . . the notion disturbed him . . . like dull, dried blood. The house looked silent, as though it could never contain voices, footsteps, life itself. It might resemble a monastery, but it was hard to imagine invocations inside those walls.
He and Cora were on one of the slopes overlooking Kline's home, Halloran's brief reconnoitre of the estate confirming his doubts about its security. The two thousand acres were enclosed well enough to keep stray ramblers out, but there was no way any interloper of serious intent could be deterred. Kline's confidence in his own safety within the bounds of the estate was surprising, to say the least.
Immediately below them was what once must have been a splendid topiary garden. Now its bushes and hedges had become disarrayed, their sculptured shapes no longer maintained; where once there had been carved animals, cones and spheres, there were protrusions and distortions, the vegetation neither natural nor engineered, but tortured and bizarre. At present these green deformities served only to provide random screening for anyone approaching the house.
'Can we sit for a while?' Halloran turned to Cora again, the fragile anxiety behind her gaze puzzled him.
She had changed iota jacket and jeans for their tour of the grounds, the transformation from city lady into country girl both easy and pleasing. Even so, that slight darkness beneath her eyes seemed more pronounced, tainting some of her freshness.
'We've covered quite a distance in a short space of time,' he said. 'I'm a little breathless myself.'
'It's not that. It's . . . just peaceful up here.' He caught the hesitation and wondered at it. He also caught her glance towards the house as she'd spoken. She sank to her knees and he followed suit, lounging back on one elbow while his search roved the grounds below. The lake had become leaden and grey, no breeze stirring its surface, no sunlight dappling its currents.
'Tell me about him, Cora.' She looked startled. 'About Felix?' He nodded. 'Is he as mysterious as he pretends? Is he as crass as he pretends? I'll accept that he can do these wonderful things for Magma—why else would they insure his life for so much? but what is his power exactly, where does it come from?' Her laugh was brittle. 'Perhaps even he doesn't know the answer to that last question.'
'Why are you afraid of him?' Her look was sharp, angry. Nevertheless she replied. 'Felix commands respect.'
'Fear and respect aren't the same thing. You don't have to tell me, but is he much more than an employer to you?'
'As you say, I don't have to tell you.' There was something moving from the trees on a slope at the far side of the house. Halloran watched without alerting the girl.
She mistook his silence for something else. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I understand you're only doing your job.
I suppose it's important that you know as much as possible about Felix.' The shape had slunk back into the trees. Too small, too low to the ground to be a deer. Too big and dark to be a fox. Why hadn't it been mentioned that there was a dog on the estate? Maybe it was a stray.
'It isn't quite that important, Cora,' he said. 'I think the reason I ask is that I want to know more about you, not Kline.' A subtle flaring of her pupils, the movement noticed by Halloran. His words had roused emotions in her. Those dark spots within the blue quickly retreated. 'I suppose that's part of your job too.
You obviously think I could endanger Felix in some way.'
'It's possible, but it isn't why I'm interested.' She gave a small shake of her head, her expression confused. 'Then why . . . ?' He shrugged. 'It's bothering me too. Let's say I don't feel we're strangers.'
Cora stared at him. He wasn't smiling, but there was humour in his eyes. At first she thought he was mocking her, but then he did smile and its warmth was enveloping. That warmth spread through her, seeping into her body as if to purge the coldness there. Yet paradoxically she sensed a chilling danger in this man and she was afraid of how much he would discover about her, about Kline—about Neath itself—before this affair was through. She had sensed Kline's fascination with his newfound protector at their first meeting and it frightened her, for there might be unguarded moments they would all regret.
There was a perceptiveness about Halloran, a knowingness, that was intimidating as it was reassuring.
There was the dichotomy of the man and perhaps that was part of his allure.
'I . . . I think we should return to the house,' was all she could think of to say.
He caught her wrist as she began to rise and the touching startled her. 'I'm here to see that no harm comes to you,' he said.
'To Felix you mean,' she replied, staying there on the ground when he took his hand away.
'You're part of it. Your safety is just as important.'
'Not as far as Magma is concerned.' She managed to smile.
'You're part of it,' he repeated, and Cora was unsure of his meaning. 'You still haven't answered any of my questions,' he persisted.
'I'm not sure that I can. I'm not sure that I know.' He watched her confusion and realised he had delved too soon. Cora could never accept him so quickly: an instinct told him she held secrets that bound her to Kline in some way.