Her hand rested on the door handle. What if he was asleep in there? What if he had someone with him? What if it was someone female? That thought was particularly unwelcome. No, Tate wasn’t like Fellstamp. If he was there then she would speak to him. If he wasn’t, then it would be wise to find out what she was up against. As her hand turned the handle, she could hear the heartbeat thumping in her ears. The door opened with a light click.
“Tate? It’s only me, Alex.” The door swung open. “Tate?” The room was empty.
She slipped inside, placing her back against the closed door. She might not have long, and it would not do to get caught in here. The butterflies in her stomach were like an alarm.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Something grand and imposing perhaps? Instead there were soft muslin drapes hanging from a wooden rail at the window, filtering the daylight into a soft glow. The furniture was of very dark wood, deeply polished and burnished to a lighter chestnut shine in spots where it had seen long use. There was a half-height wardrobe over a set of drawers against the wall, and a wide chest against the opposite wall over which a long-handled axe was mounted on the wall. The room was dominated by the huge bed. She would avoid the bed.
“Is there something here?” she asked herself softly, wandering around the room, looking for some trace of herself — a lost trinket, a scarf or bangle, something that could be used against her. Beyond the wardrobe was a door to a bathroom. There was a shower that was easily twice as big as hers. Over the rail were soft white towels and on the back of the door was a linen robe which would cover her like a tent. When you were close to him you could forget how big he was. Another unbidden thought came into her head and she left the bathroom more quickly than she’d entered.
Back in the bedroom, she went to the stand by the bed, opening drawers and finding cufflinks and a pen and notepad, along with other small personal items. There was nothing of hers. She went to the chest, opening the lid and finding stacks of clothes, some weapons, clean towels. The chest smelled as he smelled — earthy, scented with something herbal and exotic with the slightest hint of musk. Was it a cologne; an aftershave, perhaps?
She closed the chest and climbed on top of it to run the tips of her fingers along the long handle of the axe, noting how the wood was worn where his grip held it. Then she realised what was doing and snatched her hand away.
“There must be something,” she said. “It can’t be nothing.”
She went to the wardrobe and opened each drawer in turn, finding spare clothing, piles of underwear, and some leather-bound books that looked about a hundred years old. She wondered if one of them was a spell-book, and started leafing through them, only to discover they were history books, full of dates and events that were long since forgotten. There was no book of charms, and no secret diary that would give her a clue to what was going on. She closed the drawers and turned around.
It was a very big bed, but then it would have to be. He was a very big guy. Her hand rested on the quilted coverlet that was carefully turned down. Maybe this was just somewhere he slept? Maybe he had another house somewhere else and that was where he kept his secrets? There was nothing here that made it look like home — no personal clutter, no trinkets or mementos.
A distant noise brought her back to reality. She had failed to find anything but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to find. She quickly looked under the wardrobe and beneath the bed, finding not so much as a missing cufflink, or a lost pen. Why was it all so tidy? What was he hiding? She went back around the room, replacing everything just as she’d found it. When she was satisfied that no one would know of her visit, especially Tate, she cracked the door and listened for the sounds of anyone in the corridor outside. When she was sure she was unobserved, she stepped out, closing the door carefully and quietly behind her, and headed back to her side of the house.
“Score one to you,” she muttered to herself, “but the game’s not over yet.”
After a while, Lesley left and then rejoined us, bringing Dave with her. Mullbrook produced a bottle of champagne from which Lesley would only accept the tiniest glass. Dave looked uncomfortable until we explained that he didn’t have to make a speech, at which point he cheered up considerably, kissed Lesley to rowdy cheers from around the table and accepted our toasted congratulations.
I excused myself and took the baby upstairs to his bed, changing him and then spending a while reading stories to him while he settled down. The excitement of the day must have worn him out, because despite his effort to stay awake, his eyes drooped and he was quickly asleep. I continued reading until I was sure he was settled and then pulled the door to his room almost closed. There was something else I wanted to do, while I had a moment alone.
Taking revenge was not something I was generally given to. I didn’t make a habit of bearing grudges — my view was that every grudge had to be carried, and it was you that ended up with the burden. In one case I would make an exception, though.
I placed my hand upon the mirror in my bedroom, and felt for the connection with the stillness behind the mirror. I’d asked Blackbird about mirrors once, and why I seemed to have a particular affinity with them. She didn’t exactly know but speculated that perhaps all mirrors were subtly connected and that my affinity was not with the mirrors themselves, but with the space between them. As I felt the connection grow, I could feel the tension inherent in the connection, and I spoke two words.
“Sam Veldon?”
The surface of the mirror cooled, and around my hand the faintest mist of condensation clouded the surface. To me it felt like dropping a stone into a still pool, waiting for the ripples to return from some distant object. A buzzing emerged from within the mirror, and then a ringing tone. It rang five or six times and then was answered.
“Hello? Who’s this?” There was background noise — a pub perhaps, or a busy restaurant.
I removed my hand without saying anything, withdrawing my intention from the mirror, and the connection faltered and collapsed. That was all I wanted for the moment, so I went back down to the kitchen to rejoin the conversation around the table.
After a while I went back upstairs to check on my son. I reached down into his cot and rested my hand on his forehead, stroking his hair. He sighed softly, content in the sleep of the innocent. Then I went back into the bedroom and used the mirror again. This time there was no mobile phone signal, only the rattle and squeal of a tube train running down the tracks. I waited for a lull in the noise, perhaps when the train slowed for signals or before a station, and then said, “Sam?”
“Huh?” A voice, questioning, as if he were half asleep, or drunk maybe. “Who’s there?”
I took my hand away, and went to find Alex. I found her in her room, alone. “Are you OK?” I asked.
She looked momentarily as if I’d asked her some searching and incisive question, but then she relaxed. “Yeah, I’m OK.”
“Come and join us,” I said. “Mullbrook’s telling stories in the kitchen.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’ll come down in a while.” She sighed as if the weight of the world bore down on her.
“You always say that when you mean no,” I said, echoing her words to me.
She looked at me curiously for a moment, and then relented. “OK,” she said. “Are they good stories?”
“It’s Mullbrook,” I said. “When I left he was telling us how he stopped the cheese being stolen from the fridges by painting it with green food colouring.”
We went together down to the kitchen and Amber had slipped in, standing against the back wall. I smiled at her, but she ignored me, continuing to rest against the wall near the door.
“You can come and sit down,” I said, in low tones.