Distant Voices Read online

  He looked round intrigued. The room was low-ceilinged, cosy, furnished simply with a generous scatter of cushions and throws. He rather liked it. Accepting another glass of wine – so, she did drink the stuff sometimes – and the promise of a coffee when the kettle had boiled, he threw himself down on the sofa and smiled. ‘So, where is this flatmate?’

  She was choosing a CD from the pile in the corner and he couldn’t see her face.

  ‘He’ll be along, I expect.’

  Soft music filled the room. Nothing he recognised. Strings. A harp. An occasional arpeggio on a pan flute. Taking off her jacket she threw it down and kicked off her shoes. Then she sat down, not next to him, but on a chair several feet away.

  And for the first time that evening really looked at him hard.

  Embarrassed by the scrutiny he dropped his gaze to the ruby depths in his glass. She smiled. Not bad looking. An eight out of ten, perhaps. Gold credit card – he had used it to pay for dinner, and in his name, not the business’s, so money no obvious problem. Good job. He was after all her new boss. Sufficiently unattached or detached to take her out to dinner. His marital status did not bother her; a wife out of sight in the country was a wife out of mind; a ring and a marriage contract were not what she wanted. She wanted intellectual stimulation. Money, excitement, fun, companionship.

  And sex of course.

  She stretched languidly and saw his eyes flicker away from the wine towards the buttons on her blouse. Performance could only be judged by experience, but he had one or two other little tests to pass before she allowed him to seduce her. She smiled secretly. How strange that it never dawned on men even in this age of equal opportunity that they might be the prey.

  ‘If we’re lucky he might not come.’ He would of course. He always did.

  He looked up, surprised. ‘Who?’

  ‘My flatmate.’ She did not want him to feel too secure, too comfortable. Not yet.

  The trouble was she was fussy about her men. Her real men. She needed to know if he could handle irony. If he had wit and intellect. And courage. So far she was not convinced. His only attempt at a joke had been puerile.

  ‘I’ll make the coffee.’ She gave him the half-lidded smile which men found enigmatic and headed, not for the kitchen, but towards the bedroom. It was here she kept her books, her flute, her tapes of poetry and drama. And her ghost.

  Boris had been there since she had moved in. Companionable, gentle, not frightening at all once she had got used to him. Perhaps a little lonely. He was a friend, a confidant and, when she needed one, a chaperone who could chase away the most persistent of men.

  Making sure the door was shut she slipped out of her shirt and trousers, stood for a moment naked in front of her mirror, and then pulled on the green silk wrap which turned her eyes to aquamarine and her hair to living fire.

  Then she switched on the tape. Most of it – fifty-five minutes exactly – was silence.

  In the shadows Boris watched it all and smiled. He had been lonely before she came, she was right. She had brought interest and sometimes excitement to the stasis of his existence. And she had given him a purpose. She thought she chose the men that stayed, but that was his self-appointed task. A task he performed with care and discrimination.

  Matthew ignored the coffee, his eyes fixed, as she had known they would be, on the cleavage artfully revealed by the slippery silk. His physical reaction was, she noticed, a gratifying and unmissable ten out of ten.

  He was not sure about the book she had produced though, puzzled by her timing, she thought, rather than appalled by the literary flavour the evening had suddenly acquired. But he acquitted himself well and cheerfully. Almost apologetically he revealed a more than passable knowledge of Chaucer, Jung, Plath and Okri, the cornerstones, in her view, of a broad intellect. Through them she could test briefly and without fuss his knowledge of history, psychology, philosophy, modern literature and politics and mark each out often (eight to nine in this case, she reckoned, pleased). That only left the ability to laugh at himself. So many men failed that most crucial test.

  She rather hoped he wouldn’t.

  Intrigued and a little confused by the response his attempt at seduction had evoked, Matthew was nonetheless content. In the restaurant he had marked her down, in his turn, eventually, as scatty and not very bright. A quick lay if he were lucky. No more. Now, given courage by her own environment she had proved herself intelligent, well-read, thoughtful. He liked her for it more and more.

  But it was a bit of a turn-off.

  Her signals were in conflict: the deep green silk a come-on; the conversation a hold-back. Unmarried and so far uncommitted, he did not yet know that to fall in love with a woman you must first fall in love with her mind. He wanted to take her in his arms, but she was deeply into a new theme now. Universal consciousness.

  Perhaps this was where the ghost came in?

  Glancing into the shadows thrown by the carefully placed table lamps he smiled, suddenly uneasy.

  Recognising the sign she glanced at her watch. It was happening too soon. There were three more minutes of the silent tape to go. There was only one way to fill them.

  His lap was very comfortable. His lips tasted pleasantly of wine and coffee. Ten out of ten again, she thought, sleepy now. Slowly, with practised fingers she began to unbutton his shirt. She would be sad if he failed the test. The last three men had failed. But they were wimps and she had let Boris chase them away. Boris’s trouble was that he never made a sound. The sound effects she had to provide for him. And they were very subtle. The slightest signs. Footsteps on uncarpeted floors and then in the distance a forlorn, breathy whistle, almost a monotone rather than a tune.

  She felt Matthew tense, saw his eyes refocus away from her breast into the corner of the room, felt the gentlest touch of cold cross his skin under her fingers.

  ‘Ignore him,’ she whispered. He was there, but Matthew would never see him. She held her breath. The ghostly laugh, especially recorded by her brother with his head in a drainage pipe, had unmanned the others, the wimps. It was coming now.

  She had to admit that it made even her blood curdle. For a moment he froze. She felt him grip her arms as though he would throw her across the room, then all at once light dawned. She felt him relax, saw his eyes close as laughter rocked him, felt his kisses on her throat and breasts.

  ‘Thank God, she’s got a sense of humour after all,’ he thought as he pulled away the last of the clinging silk.

  He did not see Boris, a shadow, no more, lurking ever watchful, nodding approval, in the corner of the room.

  Let time stand still.

  Discover even more of the magic.

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  If you enjoyed this book, you’ll love Barbara Erskine’s brilliant latest novel, Sleeper’s Castle – an epic tale of suspense, passion and history.

  Two women, centuries apart. One endless nightmare tearing Wales apart – and only they can stop it.

  Sunday Times bestselling author Barbara Erskine returns to Hay in the year that marks the 30th anniversary of her sensational debut bestseller, Lady of Hay.

  Hay-On-Wye, 1400 – War is brewing in the Welsh borders, Catrin is on the brink of womanhood and falling in love for the first time. Her father is a soothsayer, playing a dangerous game playing on the mixed loyalties and furious rivalries between welsh princes and English lords. For two hundred years, the Welsh people have lain under the English yoke, dreaming of independence. And finally it looks as though the charismatic Owain Glyndwr may be the man legend talks of. In the walls of Sleeper’s Castle, Catrin finds herself cau
ght in the middle of a doomed war as she is called upon to foretell Wales’s destiny … And what she sees, is blood and war coming closer …

  Hay, 2015. Miranda has moved to Sleeper’s Castle to escape and grieve. Slowly she feels herself coming to life in the solitude of the mountains. But every time she closes her eyes her dreams become more vivid. And she makes a connection with a young girl, who’s screaming, who’s reaching out … who only Miranda can help. Is she losing herself to time?

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  About the Author

  Barbara Erskine is the Sunday Times bestselling author of over a dozen novels. Her first book, Lady of Hay, has sold more than three million copies worldwide and has never been out of print since it was first published thirty years ago. Her books have been translated into over twenty-five languages and are international bestsellers. Barbara lives in Hay-on-Wye in the Welsh borders.

  To find out more about Barbara and her books visit her website, find her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

  www.barbara-erskine.co.uk

  Facebook.com/barbaraers‌kineofficial

  @Barbaraerskine

  Also by Barbara Erskine

  Lady of Hay

  Kingdom of Shadows

  Encounters (short stories)

  Child of the Phoenix

  Midnight is a Lonely Place

  House of Echoes

  Distant Voices (short stories)

  On the Edge of Darkness

  Whispers in the Sand

  Hiding from the Light

  Sands of Time (short stories)

  Daughters of Fire

  The Warrior’s Princess

  Time’s Legacy

  River of Destiny

  The Darkest Hour

  Sleeper’s Castle

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