A woman had answered, identifying herself as Maud Griffith. “This is a pleasure, Dr. Homewood. Jessica has told us so many nice things about you.”
Julian had attempted to form a picture of the woman from her voice. She seemed to be trying to project a simple warmth and friendliness. And yet a thread of over-stimulated enthusiasm in her tone troubled him.
When he asked to speak to Jessica, Maud Griffith said, “But she’s out riding, Doctor.”
“I’d been told she was ill.”
There had been the slightest pause. Then Maud Griffith said, “You’ve heard some village gossip, Doctor. She was in bed with the sniffles this morning but she had no temperature so we let her out into the sunshine with Windkin. Is there any message?”
Puzzled, he replaced the phone after giving Mrs. Griffith numbers where Jessica could reach him, this apartment and his office at Stanford.
Pacing now, he checked his watch. That had been almost eighteen hours ago. And not a word from Jessica.
Julian’s sense of dislocation was not a new sensation. He had been plagued by this strange alienation ever since he had arrived in California. At faculty parties, he had found himself wondering what he was doing in this land of distances and mountains that took your breath away with their ungiving size. And why had he felt estranged from the California girls with their surfing and skiing talents, manes of blond hair, long, tanned legs, and eyes electric-bright with health and vitality as they chatted about their work and danced in discos and drove to the university in their bug-like sports cars.
It wasn’t the presence of nothing, he found distressful here. It was the absence of something. And he hadn’t realized what that something was until he had re-read that morning the poem that Jessica had written for him in her suite in London.
Of course, Julian had always known that Jessica loved him. As he loved her. But as dear friends, an older brother enjoying a sister’s company, a teacher with a favorite student, an affectionate cousin who remembered birthdays...
They had shared many pleasures, the times at Easter Hill, the friendship with Andrew Dalworth, but more importantly, they had shared the exploration of her mental processes, examining the gifts of clairvoyance that were the essence of Jessica Mallory.
Julian had known these things and was grateful for them. But now he felt frustrated and helpless because he had never seen the coming years as Jessica had, or the future she had perceived in her last poem from London.
The poem was untitled. The words formed in Julian’s memory as he looked out across the darkened campus:
Making an inevitable decision, he dialed his secretary and told her to book a flight for him to Shannon. He had showered and changed when the phone rang and his secretary was back on the line.
“I’ve tried everything, Doctor. Pan Am, Icelandic, KLM, even an Air Force circling up from Algiers. But it’s the week of the Grand National in England and everything is booked solid...”
Julian then dialed another number and within minutes — courtesy of a private, unlisted number — spoke directly to a ranking CIA officer in Langley, Virginia.
When Dr. Homewood explained his problem, Simon Cutter said, “No sweat, Doctor. A chauffeur will pick you up in about twenty minutes. You can connect with our shuttle out of San Francisco for Alaska. Courier plane will take you to Reykjavik and on down to Prestwick. An Army jet will be standing by for Shannon. You’ll be at Mach II all the way, so you’ll beat commercial flights by about six hours.”
Julian Homewood checked his currency and passport, strapped up his shoulder bag and within the hour was in a jet aircraft looking down thirty-five thousand feet at the choppy blue and white waters of the Pacific.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Seated on the curved cushions in her bay window, Jessica tried to isolate the emphemeral conviction that Dr. Julian was aware of her problems. But the effort was frustrated by stronger impressions, concepts of childhood, and the verbal metaphor of gemstone.
And her concentration was further splintered by the noises that she had been hearing that afternoon — heavy footsteps in the hallways and the sounds of furniture being lifted and carried down the stairs.
Standing close to her bedroom windows, she had seen the shining hood of a moving van parked at a side entrance.
She was distracted then by refractions from the curved panes, and when she stared down at the lawns and stables, Jessica saw yellow flecks glowing like fireflies in the velvet shadows. Jessica’s heartbeat quickened. She realized, as the lights spurted again from a boxwood hedge, that it was Kevin O’Dell in the shrubbery signalling to her with matches. Four flashes, the same code they had used as children.
Taking her flashlight from the closet, she swept the beam of her torch across the windows — four rapid slashes — but just as she flicked off the switch, a lock clicked, the door of her room swung open and Uncle Eric snapped on the overhead lights. “What the hell’s going on here?”
He was in a foul mood. The business arrangements with Ethelroyd had been abrasive, difficult and eventually a source of rancor and humiliation. Ethelroyd was gone now, on his way north to the border, objects of art from Easter Hill crated or wrapped snugly in thick quiltings in his vans. But the fat man had enraged Eric by referring to the things he had bought as “poor darling bastards — no baptismal certificates, no pedigrees, sent off into the world without bills of sale, proof of provenance, not even customs’ attestations.” And Ethelroyd had concluded this needling harangue with, “Ah, but the precious foundlings will find proper homes in England...”
“What’s that you’re hiding behind your back?” Eric demanded.
“A flashlight,” answered Jessica promptly. “The lamps were flickering.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with them now.” Eric hiccuped and felt an abrasive rasp of whiskey in his throat. “Did you do the work I told you to? Have you forgot what I said about that damned horse of yours?”
Jessica looked at him steadily and picked up the slim manila envelope from the bay window seat.
“I’ve done what you asked. I’ve seen the finish line.” She extended the envelope to him, still staring impassively into his eyes.
“We’ll just take a look.” Eric’s hands trembled as he opened the envelope and studied the entry sheets. If she were right, this was too bloody good to be true, he thought, hearing his quickening breathing as he studied her picks. The odds-on favorites, the newspaper picks, weren’t in it at all; Etoile Rouge, Daedalus and Kerry Dancer, the Muirhead entry, all out of the money.
The girl had picked Sterling Choice, currently at fifty-five to one, to win it, Overlord at fifty-to-one to place, and Primrose to show, at twenty-five- to thirty-to-one. Not one of these entries had been touted to so much as show by the handicappers Eric had studied in newspapers from Manchester, Liverpool, Dublin and London.
“How do you know this?” he demanded, staring across the form sheets at Jessica. His voice had become noticeably hoarse. “What exactly did you see, girl? And don’t lie to me. Everything I’ve got in the world depends on this. Are you sure, Jessica? Are you sure!?”