The Warrior's Princess Read online

  Here, she used to feel safe; at home. Suddenly she hated it all. What she wanted was silence.

  Methodically she began packing up, sorting out the paperwork, loosening her ties to school and friends. Only for the summer, she explained. Just going away to be on my own for a bit. Taking the chance to do some painting. She didn’t say where she was going. Made it sound mysterious. Fun. Lonely. It wasn’t going to be for ever. She loved the flat. She didn’t want to sell it. She just needed space. Somewhere safe. Somewhere he couldn’t find her.

  When the phone rang as she came in through the front door she answered it unsuspectingly, expecting it to be the headmaster’s secretary, Jane, with yet more red tape to sort out. ‘Hello?’ She was juggling handset, handbag, shopping, unloading her stuff on the table, the front door still open behind her.

  ‘How are you, Jess? Recovered yet?’ The voice was muffled; deep. She didn’t recognise it.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Her carrier bags had fallen to the floor. Turning she walked the two strides to the door and slammed it shut, reaching for the chain to ram into its slot. ‘Will, is that you?’ He had rung two or three times and she had refused to speak to him.

  There was no reply. For several seconds the line stayed open; she could sense him, whoever he was, there, listening. Then he hung up.

  Her hand was slippery with sweat as she put down the receiver. She sat down at the table, her head in her hands, trying to steady her breathing. Ring the police. She should ring the police now. But how could she? She had made her decision not to tell anyone and she was going to stick with it. Abruptly she sat up and reaching for the handset again dialled 1471, her hands shaking. The caller had withheld his number.

  Half an hour later the phone rang again. She stood staring down at it for several seconds before she answered.

  ‘Jess? I wanted to check you’d received all the bumph from the Head’s secretary.’ It was Dan. He was calling from school. When she didn’t answer immediately his voice sharpened. ‘Jess, what is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ve been having calls, Dan. When I answer there is no one there. This time he asked how I was. Then he hung up.’

  ‘Did you recognise his voice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it wasn’t Will?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. You didn’t say anything to Will about where I’m going, did you, Dan?’ Dan was the only person she had told; after all, he had known Steph as long as he had known her. They had all been at college together.

  ‘You made me promise not to.’

  ‘And I meant it.’ Jess bit her lip.

  ‘If it wasn’t Will,’ he said slowly, ‘it could have been Ash.’

  She breathed deeply for a moment. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’

  ‘Ash is an actor. He is quite capable of disguising his voice, Jess. OK, so he shouldn’t know your phone number. Anyone could find it though. He could have looked while he was in your flat.’ There was a pause. ‘He was in your flat, wasn’t he, Jess?’ When she didn’t reply he went on. ‘Or he could have looked it up in Jane’s office here. I know the kids aren’t supposed ever to get in here, but they do.’

  She nodded numbly.

  ‘Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘No. No, Dan. Don’t worry. I’m OK.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am if you need me. When are you going?’

  ‘In a day or two. As soon as I’ve sorted all the paperwork.’

  ‘All right, take care. I’ll ring you tomorrow, OK?’

  Her case was lying open on her bed. She was folding the last of her clothes into it when the phone rang again. She paused for a moment, her heart thumping then she leaned across to her bedside table to pick it up. There was no one there.

  ‘Hello?’ She started to shake. ‘Who is it? You may as well tell me! Ash, is it you?’ There was no answer. ‘Hello!’ She shook the receiver. ‘Hello! Who is there?’

  There was a quiet laugh the other end of the line. Male voice. Deep. Anonymous.

  She dropped the receiver back on its base with a whimper of fear. The bastard was enjoying this. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. She glanced at her watch. She could leave tonight. Now. There was nothing to keep her here a moment longer. She had even found a tenant for a few weeks to look after the flat. And if she left now she could catch up with Steph before she left for Rome. She would be safe in Wales. No one would find her there. She glanced at her mobile. He hadn’t rung her on that so far. Hopefully he didn’t know that number which was another reason to think it wasn’t Will. Will knew her mobile number; he knew Steph’s address – he had even been to Ty Bran. He knew everything there was to know about her. It couldn’t be Will who was tormenting her. If it was, she was lost. He would guess at once where she had gone.

  Dan was the weak link in her plan. The only person who knew where she was really going. He answered at the third ring.

  ‘Dan, if anyone asks, tell them I’m going to Italy to spend the summer with Steph and Kim, OK?’

  She smiled grimly as she heard Dan laugh. After all, it might even be true. If Kim didn’t mind maybe she would follow Steph there. And just in case, it would do no harm to throw her passport into her bag.

  Closing her case she stood it by the front door. The contents of the fridge went into a cardboard box and a cool bag; the papers scattered across her desk into her briefcase with her laptop, and beside that her two beleaguered house plants with her artists’ materials and sketchbooks too long abandoned for lack of time, already in another cardboard box.

  Cautiously she opened the door and peered out onto the landing. She had already dropped off a spare key with Mrs Lal who had promised to keep an eye on the flat for her until the tenant arrived. Her car was parked two streets away. Picking her keys up off the kitchen counter she ran down the stairs. It was early yet and the streets were still bathed in sunshine as people made their way home from work. She could hear music echoing above the sound of traffic and smell the smoky spiciness of cooking meat from the tandoori restaurant near the tube station.

  Someone, probably Mrs Lal, had left the street door on the latch. She hesitated, looking left and right along the street, then pulled it to, leaving it unlocked for the old lady as she hurried round the square to find her car. It was hemmed in tightly as usual and the roof had been liberally splattered with bird droppings from the plane tree under which she had parked it. With careful manoeuvring she managed to extricate it and drive back to her flat leaving it double-parked outside. The street door was still open. Frowning, she glanced up and down the road. She couldn’t see Mrs Lal or any of the upstairs people. There was a gang of boys hanging around on the corner, some builders packing ladders and paint pots into a van; two African girls in bright dresses were giggling at them; beyond them she could see a couple of women in black headscarves. No one was near her door; no one who would have been into her house. Pushing the door open carefully, she looked into the hallway. All was quiet. She ran up, taking the stairs two at a time and stopped on the first floor landing which was in deep shadow, the lightbulb broken yet again.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out nervously. ‘Is there anyone there?’

  There was no reply.

  With a shaking hand she groped in her pocket for her keys. Before she tried to slot the first into the lock her door swung open. Holding her breath she looked in. Her bags and boxes were still standing in a line where she had left them. The flat was silent but something had changed. Someone had been there; she could sense it. Smell it. She sniffed. Aftershave. And sweat.

  ‘Will?’ It wasn’t the brand he used, but he was the only person she knew of with a key. Unless she had left the door open. But she hadn’t. She knew she hadn’t. Had she? ‘Will, are you there?’ she enquired shakily – she was poised, ready to run.

  There was no reply.

  Cautiously she peered into the living room. There was a large bouquet of flowers lying on the coffee table.

 
Her heart seemed to stop beating. Frozen, like a rabbit in the headlights, she stared round the room.

  ‘Will?’ Her voice was trembling.

  There was no sound. Even in her panic she could feel the emptiness of the flat.

  ‘Will?’ Her mouth dry, she tiptoed to her bedroom door. There was no one there. The neatly made bed, the tidy surfaces, the half-drawn curtains were all as she had left them. She turned and went to glance into the kitchen and bathroom. Both were empty. No one appeared to have been in there. Her boxes by the door had not been touched as far as she could see. Whoever had been into the flat in the short time she had been away, had gone. Pushing the front door closed she took a deep breath and went back to the flowers. There was a card tucked in amongst the pink and blue petals of the shop-bought chrysanthemums in their swathes of pink Cellophane and ribbon. With shaking hands she pulled it out and opened it.

  We two, that with so many thousand sighs Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves With the rude brevity and discharge of one. Injurious time now with a robber’s haste Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how. As many farewells as be stars in heaven, With distinct breath and consign’d kisses to them, He fumbles up into a loose adieu, And scants us with a single famish’d kiss, Distanced with the salt of broken tears.

  Thanks for everything, cheers,

  Ash.

  Underneath he had scrawled, Your door was open. Sorry to miss you. A x

  Ash had been in her flat. Not Will. Ash, quoting from Troilus and Cressida. He must have been watching, waiting for her to go out so he could sneak in. She closed her eyes with a shudder.

  It took ten minutes to load the car, racing up and down the flights of stairs with her boxes and cases, constantly scanning the pavements. At last everything was in. She went back to the flat one last time and glanced round to check she hadn’t forgotten anything. Just the flowers. With a grimace of disgust she picked them up and rammed them head first into the waste bin. She threw the card in after them, ran out of the flat, double-locked the door behind her and headed into the car.

  Slamming down the door locks, she sank down behind the wheel taking deep breaths to try and calm her panic. ‘All over. He’s not here. He won’t know where I’m going. I’ll be safe.’ She was whispering the words out loud as she rammed the key into the ignition and turned it.

  3

  As the old Ford Ka bumped up the track towards the house Jess peered through the windscreen at her sister’s small sprawling farmstead nestling against the wooded hillside and felt a sudden wave of intense happiness and relief. The feeling wavered a little as she turned into the courtyard and switched off the engine. Where was Steph’s car? The house was empty. She was too late. Steph had already gone – why else would the front door be closed? She had never seen it closed before in all the time Steph had lived there, even in winter.

  Climbing out, stiff after the long drive, she stared round. Fighting off a wave of sudden loneliness she went to look for the key. It was in its usual hiding place, cocooned in cobwebs, a sign of how seldom it had been used, under a terracotta pot in the porch. As she bent to pick it up an indignant swallow swooped out of the nest tucked into the shadows above her head, leaving a row of sullen babies, half-fledged and bursting out of the nest leaning out, glaring down at her.

  She pushed the key into the lock and turning it with difficulty, opened the door and went in. The house was eerily silent.

  Her sister was a sociable woman. In the past when Jess had visited, the place had always been full of people – artists and writers fleeing the town, ex boyfriends and husbands who all appeared to be on astonishingly good terms with her sister, fellow teachers from the west London art college where Steph had taught for ten years before retiring to her pottery, people she had picked up on her travels, animals who followed her home, together with waifs and strays their mother had met on her research trips and blithely redirected to her daughter in Wales. As Jess unloaded the car and cautiously began to explore the house which would be her kingdom for the summer, she was expecting at any moment to see a sleepy face peering at her from one of the bedrooms, a stray cat, a motherless lamb, a homeless artist. There was no one. The house was neat and tidy and empty. On the kitchen table there was a note with a box of nougat.

  Sorry I’m not here to welcome you. Enjoy the peace. Stay as long as you like. I mean it. Wine in fridge. See you some time. S xxx

  She chose the largest of the spare rooms to make her own. It had a double bed with a patchwork quilt, an antique pine chest and an old French armoire with a beautiful if threadbare Afghan rug on the polished oak boards, plenty of space for her books and its own quaint old bathroom set in what must have once been another bedroom behind the huge chimney breast. Carefully she put the smaller of her plants, an exuberant Flaming Katy in full scarlet flower, on the windowsill. The other plant, a mother-in-law’s tongue given her by Will, which had barely escaped with its life after their break up, when she had still been throwing things about, she put in the bathroom, a room large enough for an antique dressing table and an ancient creaking settle covered by an exotic crimson shawl, and yet another bookcase beside the free-standing bath.

  She wandered round the rest of the house, the sitting room with its open hearth swept and filled with dried flowers, the dining room with its refectory table, so often crammed with talking, arguing, noisy people. Steph’s cooking was adventurous and not always terribly successful – she was frequently rescued from her culinary crises by more talented visitors who didn’t seem to mind standing in at the last minute as chef. Jess smiled fondly at the memory. She wandered on into the large old-fashioned kitchen which was unnaturally tidy, overlooking the courtyard, and then through the passage with its small pointed windows, built to blend with the medieval lines of the lovely old byre which Steph had converted as her studio. Standing in the doorway she looked round at the unused materials on their shelves, the newly made pots carefully packed in boxes, the craftsman pieces which Steph sold through galleries in Radnor and Hereford and Hay, the piles of broken crocks. She hated the studio like this. Empty, like the house, the kiln cold, the soul somehow gone out of the place without her sister there. She stood for several moments, listening to the distant songs of the birds and she shivered. Walking back into the passage she turned the key in the lock and leaving the studio to its own devices she went back into the kitchen.

  Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come after all, with Steph not being here.

  Why hadn’t Steph said at once, come with me. Come to Rome. Come to the sunshine. Jess glared at the plants crowded onto the windowsill behind the sink. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m plant sitting and it’s not what I had in mind at all!’

  She frowned. What she had in mind was to paint. To forget London and what had happened to her there. To look forward and not back. The thought cheered her. Suddenly she could hardly wait to open her sketchbook, to feel again the reassuring grip of a pen or brush in her hand. She wanted to capture everything. Trees. The silhouette of the hills. The warm soft outlines of the stone walls; the colours of the flowers, the incredible structure of the petals of the orchid on the kitchen windowsill. It was going to be OK.

  That night her dream returned. She was standing outside the front door, staring across the yard towards the open gate and the wood behind it. The branches of the trees were moving uneasily and she could sense a storm drifting along the broad river valley below the fields. The voice when it came was thin and wavering.

  Can we stop playing this game now. I’m frightened.

  It was coming from somewhere in the wood, almost drowned out by the sound of raindrops pattering down onto the leaves.

  ‘Where are you?’ Jess ran towards the gate. ‘Come in. It’s going to pour. Come here, sweetheart. You’ll be safe here.’

  The rain was growing heavier. She could feel it soaking into her jacket, drenching her hair. Her fingers were slippery on the top of the gate as she peered into t
he darkness. ‘Where are you?’

  A flash of lightning lit up the track and in the distance she caught sight of the child, her pale hair hanging in ropes across her shoulders, her little face pleading as the darkness closed in once more.

  ‘Wait. I’m coming! Wait there.’ Jess started to run down the track, her feet slipping in the mud as the first crash of thunder echoed around the hills.

  With a start her eyes opened and she lay looking up at the ceiling. For a second the dream lingered, then it was gone as she became aware of the drumming of rain on the slates above her head and on the flagstones in the courtyard outside the window. The rain was real. As was the thunder. As another rumble echoed round the house she sat up and reached for the light switch.

  In the kitchen she found herself staring out of the window into the darkness. There had been a child in her dream. A lost child. She shivered. It would be awful to be outside on a night like this. She was about to reach for the kettle when she heard a crash from behind the door which led into the passage to Steph’s studio. With a shiver she hugged her bathrobe round her. She ought to go and see what it was. Perhaps a tile had been dislodged by the wind or the rain or a window had blown open. If she left it something might be damaged. Her sudden fear was irrational. That was London fear. She was safe here. There was no one threatening her in this cosy haven. There was nothing to be afraid of except possibly her sister’s wrath if some precious piece of work got broken. Making her way to the door she paused, her hand on the latch, her ear pressed to the wooden panels. The rain was rattling on the roof, splattering out of a gutter somewhere onto the stones below in the yard. Slowly she reached for the key and turned it. It was several seconds before she could make herself pull open the door. The passage was in darkness. She could feel a damp chilly draught on her face. Somewhere a window must have blown open. Taking a deep breath she ran the few steps along the passage to the studio door, unlocked it and groped for the light switches. The sudden flood of cold light from high in the old beams revealed at once a box of finished figures which had been packed ready for delivery, lying on the floor. The box had splintered and broken open and the figures inside were smashed into a thousand pieces.