Once...

  ‘Mornin’, Thom.’

  The surprise of hearing her voice brought Thom back to the present with a jolt. She was standing in the doorway of one of the reception rooms off the hallway.

  ‘Ms Quick . . . ’ he said as a reaction.

  ‘I told you to call me Nell. It’s much more friendly, isn’t it?’

  There was no lack of composure today, neither in her stance – she leaned against the door-frame, one hand on her hip, her smile as mockingly challenging as the moment he had first set eyes on her – nor in her voice. She may have fled the cottage in near-panic when the plate had smashed to the stone floor two days ago, but apparently the incident caused no embarrassment now. She wore the same long and flimsy skirt as before, its hem loose around her calves, but the thonged sandals had been replaced by more sensible brogues with broad heels. Her blouse was more formal too, even though one too many top buttons had been left undone, but her raven-dark hair was only partially tamed by a bow tied at the back.

  ‘Yes, you’ve met Nell, haven’t you, Thom?’ Hugo was beaming, as though taking great pleasure from the re-introduction. ‘I told you someone would be looking in on you from time to time, but I bet you didn’t imagine it would be a ravishing creature like Nell.’

  Nell Quick shook her head at Hugo in mock reproach.

  ‘Actually, Nell’s job is to take care of Father. And a fine job she makes of it too.’

  ‘Oh, Sir Russell’s not much trouble.’ She strolled from the doorway to come close to Thom. ‘Poor man sleeps for most of the day. Rarely at night-time though. It’s funny how the dying are afraid to fall asleep at night.’ The soft tones of her accent belied the cruelty of the remark.

  Thom frowned. There was something about this woman . . .

  ‘Thom would like to see Sir Russell,’ Hugo said, apparently oblivious to Nell’s tactless remark. ‘What d’you think, Nell? Is my father up to it today?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Nell told him, her eyes remaining on Thom. ‘It can’t do any harm, even though Sir Russell might not be aware of anythin’ around him. It’s the drugs, they dull his mind. But what would be the point of cuttin’ down on them – the poor thing would only suffer more.’

  ‘I’ll take you up, Thom,’ Hugo interjected briskly. ‘Be prepared though, won’t you? It isn’t a pleasant experience.’

  A deep feeling of gloom pushed aside his previous overwhelming sense of wellbeing as Thom followed his friend to the sweeping staircase. On impulse, just before he began to climb, he turned his head to glance back at Nell Quick.

  That same mocking smile was on her lips, but a scarcely disguised hardness had replaced the seductiveness of those dark eyes.

  IT WAS a long haul up to Castle Bracken’s top floor, to the peculiar self-contained eyrie imagined and constructed by the mansion’s first tenant, who had been inspired by the wonderful views from the rooftop. Once a romantic overlook, it had now become one man’s self-designated death-chamber. The thought made Thom Kindred shiver.

  The building’s inner staleness seemed to saturate the atmosphere and Thom’s dread deepened with every step: stagnation was its essence, corruption an element. Even though he had never liked the place, Thom could not remember the aversion ever being this fierce. Perhaps the old man’s imminent demise was part of the tainting, just as long ago Sir Russell’s powerful presence had lent the mansion a kind of driving vigour, his rigid discipline holding sway over family and staff alike until infirmity had slowly begun to take over. What would it be like now to witness the complete draining of that power, to see the man he had feared as much as respected enfeebled and so near to death? Thom was tormented by the coming moment.

  The long dusty drapes of the first-floor windows were half-closed against the dismal light from outside, making the gloom almost sepulchral. A worn rug, colours faded to a grey murkiness, stretched the entire length of the hallway at the top of the stairs, and tapestries, their colours also muted, but by time rather than wear, adorned the oak-panelled walls. Every door, be it to bedrooms or other reception rooms, was closed here, as if sealed against enquiry, and at the far end of the hallway a tall longcase clock, its casing made of walnut and olivewood, dial engraved brass, ticked away with deep, sonorous strokes. As Thom glanced towards it, the elongated minute hand shifted and he heard the solid clunk of the movement; the hour was way behind the actual time and he had no doubt that the wheels and springs within were worn and neglected – like the house itself. In fact, to Thom the clock seemed to symbolize not only the winding down of Castle Bracken, but of its master, too, the vitality slowly ebbing away, the heartbeat, like the tick of the clock, becoming leaden.

  He thumped the banister rail with the flat of his hand to check himself as he and Hugo started up the next flight of stairs.

  ‘You all right, old son?’ Hugo was looking curiously over his shoulder at him.

  ‘Sorry. Just bad thoughts catching up on me again. I was warned that depression would get to me from time to time.’

  ‘Well I’m afraid what you’re about to see won’t help. Sure you want to go on?’

  Thom nodded and said nothing more until they reached the second-floor landing, which was even gloomier than the first. Here, the curtains were completely closed.

  ‘I don’t get it, Hugo. Why are you treating the place like a mausoleum?’

  His friend paused on the landing to catch his breath. ‘It’s not intentional, Thom,’ he said, leaning back against the rail. ‘It’s just that this floor isn’t used any more. Hartgrove has his room up here – as you know, in the old days it used to be mainly the servants’ quarters – which is useful, because he can be close to Father during the night. Must admit though, you’ve got a point. Place does look and smell like a bloody crypt. I suppose I’ve never really noticed, too busy running backwards and forwards to tend Father. Must’ve got used to it.’

  He looked about him, wrinkling his nose. There was no oak panelling here, only faded wallpaper that might easily have been put up half a century ago, perhaps even longer. There were no adornments – no pictures or tapestries, no pieces of furniture. All the doors, whose paintwork was chipped and cracked, were closed as below, but here the wide corridor branched off midway towards another, plainer, staircase. Both men headed towards it, Hugo breathing a little harder than normal.

  ‘We should have installed a lift from the ground to the top a long time ago, but you remember my father’s problem with confined spaces,’ Hugo complained as they began to climb once more. ‘Unfortunately, money’s a bit tight these days to spend on such expensive contraptions and it wouldn’t be much use to him anyway. Not now, it wouldn’t. It’d save my poor old legs though. And Hartgrove’s. The old boy’s up and down like a yo-yo. Devoted servant and all that.’

  Thom was surprised to hear that the Bleeths’ financial resources were less than buoyant; he had always imagined that Sir Russell’s wealth was boundless.

  As if reading his thoughts, Hugo said: ‘Father’s remaining stake in his import companies has been cut drastically since his retirement. And the continual fluctuation of sterling’s value has affected trade terribly over the past few decades. Strong one moment, weak the next, making advance planning difficult, y’know. Whatever shares he retained are worth a bit if only he’d cash them in. We’re by no means up shit creek, as they say, but income ain’t what it used to be.’

  Thom was curious. ‘Why didn’t you get involved in the company yourself? Surely you could have taken over from Sir Russell?’

  ‘Unfortunately, nepotism ain’t what it used to be either.’ Hugo stopped, one foot on a higher step, a hip leaning against the rail. ‘I don’t think Father ever had any faith in me as a businessman. He certainly blocked every move I made to become part of the old firm. God, I’d have started as a teaboy if he had only allowed it, then I’d have worked my way up, Thom, climbed the ladder by my own efforts. Ha! But no, Father wasn’t having any of it. Afraid he didn’t have much faith in either of his sons.’


  Thom shook his head more in sympathy than dismay. Had Sir Russell really lost all belief in Hugo after the Lloyd’s insurance scandal in the late eighties? Even after all these years?

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Thom, but a lot of good people went under because of Lloyd’s, and ridiculously Father acted as if it were all my fault. I ask you, one of the biggest insurance debacles of all time and he thought I was a major player.’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t, Hugo.’ Thom rested against the rail opposite his friend, but a couple of steps below so that he had to look upwards. His left leg was beginning to feel heavy, and he was aware his foot was beginning to turn inwards slightly. He consciously straightened it, feeling disappointed with himself because he had felt so unbelievably well earlier on.

  ‘Oh, I can assure you, he did. Dishonour to the family name and all that. A lot of sound people were bankrupted, poor saps who were suckered into investing in the insurance market with promises of decent returns with very little actual outlay and, of course, the prestige that went with being a Name. Many were personal friends and business acquaintances of his – in fact, it was Father who introduced them to me – and two of them committed suicide because they couldn’t face the shame of losing everything. Fortunately, Father took his own losses stoically—’

  ‘He was a Name, too?’

  ‘Yes, didn’t you know? I was the one who invited him to join the 404 Syndicate, the one that became involved with all those asbestosis claims. I thought you were aware at the time.’

  Thom shook his head. ‘How could I? I was away at college.’

  ‘Well, it was just something else to blame me for, although he was more concerned for his pals in the City than himself. His personal losses were severe, but at least he wasn’t bankrupted, otherwise . . .’ he waved his hand around ‘. . . all this would have gone too. I don’t think he ever forgave me, though.’

  ‘But that was years ago and you’d only just started out. He can’t have continued to blame you.’

  Although he had been a mere youth at the time, Thom still remembered the great Lloyd’s of London insurance scandal, mainly because Hugo had been one of the younger underwriters, insignificant and inexperienced enough to be used as a convenient scapegoat by the senior and more ‘knowing’ members. Incompetence and what at best could be described as sharp practice had resulted in thousands of trusting but, in hindsight, gullible outside investors placing their entire wealth and assets as security for a relatively small investment in the insurance market.

  Unfortunately, those investors, known as Names, were not informed of the horrendous number of claims, dating back some thirty to forty years, against insurance companies, most of them concerning asbestosis suffered by employees who had been employed in the manufacture of asbestos, or who had come into contact with the fibrous material in construction work. There had also been a record worldwide rise in disasters and calamities – sinking oil tankers and the pollution they caused, oil rig and gas sea platform fires, airline crashes, as well as earthquakes, forest fires, even urban riots – all escalating in the latter half of the century to catastrophic proportions for the insurance business. Colossal losses were predicted when all claims were finally agreed and processed, most of which affected the leading and longest-serving insurance institution of them all, the once-great Lloyd’s of London.

  While the Lloyd’s overlords were speedily recruiting or accepting new Names, loosening the previously restrictive requirements and conditions in order to do so, a number of underwriters and brokers were frantically spreading their risks by reinsuring over and over again, creating ever-widening circles that eventually arrived back with their own syndicates, a questionable if not fraudulent practice known as ‘spiralling’. It should never have happened and the new Names should never have been ‘duped’ into joining without being warned of the tremendous losses about to be incurred (even though all were warned they were liable for everything they possessed, including the shirt on their back, should things go wrong, this was generally done with a metaphorical nudge of an elbow and the wink of an eye).

  Before very long, and after many, many novice Names had been added to the Lloyd’s list, the fan had been hit and the renowned institution’s reputation for honesty and competence had been irrevocably tarnished. Lives also had been ruined. Only the fact that a large number of Members of Parliament were caught in the Names’ trap prevented a government-instigated public inquiry (bankruptcy would have lost those MPs their seats in the House), and a deal was brokered so that the unfortunate investors had to pay only a percentage – albeit a large percentage – of their losses (many of those investors claimed that institutional extortion – ‘blackmail’ might have been a more appropriate word – was used to force them to pay up).

  Matters eventually cooled down and Lloyd’s itself escaped complete collapse by the skin of its teeth (although never again would its word be trusted as its bond). But before this was so, scapegoats had to be found, sacrificial lambs had to be slaughtered. Hugo Bleeth had always claimed that he was one such offering.

  It was Hugo who broke the silence that had developed between them. He swung round on the stairs and continued to climb. ‘Come on, Thom. No more post-mortems, please. It’s a part of my past I long to forget. Life moves on, old chum.’

  Thom caught up with him, using the rail on his side to pull himself up. He was surprised at how tired he had become.

  The stairway opened up to a kind of antechamber to the main quarters, a long room with deep, curtained windows and a single door leading out on to the mansion’s flat roof. A round table stood in a corner opposite the stairs, a tall freestanding cupboard unit next to it. Various cartons and pillboxes were neatly set out on the table top and Thom guessed that other medical supplies and instruments were stored inside the cupboard, along with drugs necessary to treat Sir Russell’s illness and alleviate pain. The general staleness prevailed, but the atmosphere felt defiled by something extra, something less palpable than dust and lack of clean air, something Thom couldn’t quite . . . Then he had it. There was the pervasive intimation of approaching death.

  ‘Let’s be very quiet, shall we? Sir Russell sleeps most of the day.’ Hugo was standing by a double door, a hand on one of the tarnished brass doorknobs. A stubby finger was raised unnecessarily to his pursed lips.

  Thom steeled himself, afraid of what he might find behind the closed doors. The lasting memory he had of Sir Russell Bleeth was of a man still brisk with energy, a serious man, someone of moderate build but whose back was always ramrod straight, his shoulders always squared. His sharp intelligent eyes had never revealed the sadness surely lodged within, but an anger seemed to be permanently simmering just beneath the surface; when that anger erupted, it was more often than not directed at Hugo, the youngest, remaining son, who always seemed to disappoint. Sir Russell’s thinning hair had been jet-black then, as was the narrow line of his moustache, and although his brow was deeply furrowed and wrinkles ran from the corners of his eyes, the flesh of his face was tight and cleanly defined, with no sagging of jowls or chin, no pouches below those clear blue eyes.

  When Hugo quietly turned the doorknob and eased one side of the double doors open, Thom closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Then he was ready. He followed his friend into the room.

  His first sight was a complete surprise. He had expected the room to be darkened like the hall outside and the floor they had just left below, with curtains closed or half-closed, shadows dominant. Instead it was full of brightness, daylight, grey though it might be, streaming in through the big plate-glass windows all around the room. Of course, he should have known. It seemed that even in illness Sir Russell preferred open spaces. Beyond the windows, Thom could see the rooftop’s terrace and parapet, and beyond that the low hills and woodlands of the Shropshire countryside. It was a magnificent view, the distant hills almost a faint blue against the dull sky, with forest and fields between. He turned his head towards the great four-pos
ter bed and the frail figure that lay within, the bed itself set between two windows that offered easterly views.

  Sir Russell Bleeth was propped up on a mountain of pillows, his hands by his sides on top of the sheets, acutely thin wrists and long, gnarled hands protruding from white pyjamas. Tubes and wires of an IV and an electrocardiogram sprang from his body like thin exterior organs and the lump by his hip beneath the bedsheets suggested he was also hooked up to a colostomy bag. Oddly, the four solid, carved bedposts at each corner bore no canopy, the overhead frame bare, as if any such covering had been deliberately removed along with its drapery. Thom could only assume that Sir Russell had ordered the furnishings taken away so that nothing would obstruct his views of the countryside beyond the windows nor enclose him. The bedroom was wonderfully bright, apart from the sickbed itself only a medical trolley giving evidence of its present purpose, which was an intensive care room for the terminally ill; that and the reek of body degeneration.

  It was hard to take his attention from the frail figure and, when Hugo moved towards the bed, Thom went with him. As they drew closer, he took in the transparent plastic oxygen mask that covered the lower portion of the sick man’s face and then the tube that ran from it to the chrome cylinder on its wheeled stand between the bed and the medical trolley. He saw the slight movement of Sir Russell’s chest as the old man drew in the pure air.

  ‘Father . . .?’ he heard Hugo say, both of them treading cautiously as if any sudden noise might startle the patient. ‘Father, are you awake? I’ve brought someone to see you . . .’

  Hugo stopped beside the bed and glanced back at Thom.

  ‘I think he’s asleep.’

  Even as he spoke both men heard a faint sound from Sir Russell, perhaps a murmur, or just the clearing of his dry old throat.

  Hugo quickly leaned forward, looking directly into his father’s face. ‘Are you awake?’ he repeated. ‘Look, a friend has come to visit, someone you haven’t seen for a long time.’ He motioned Thom to come nearer, then moved himself out of the way.