Pale as the Dead Read online

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Fiona Mountain

  Copyright

  For Tim, Daniel and James

  And for my Mother

  And mother find three berries red

  And pluck them from the stalk

  And burn them at the first cock-crow

  That my spirit may not walk

  ‘At Last’ Elizabeth Siddal

  O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your cheek

  Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes afraid lest they speak?

  And the woman answered me: I am pale as the dead

  For the dead have loved me, and I dream of the dead.

  ‘Pale Woman’ Arthur Symons

  Prologue

  THEY THINK SHE’S too little to understand, but they’re wrong. She understands that Charlotte is never coming back and that’s why Mummy and Daddy are so sad all the time, why they never kiss each other anymore, just shout, as they are doing now.

  She didn’t believe it when Daddy said they were going to have a lovely holiday and that everything would be all right. The sun is bright and dancing on the river. But she knows by now that the worst thing can happen on the best days.

  There are more daisies than she will ever be able to pick. She plucks another. The pink tips of the petals remind her of how Charlotte used to paint her nails when Mummy wasn’t looking. If Charlotte was here she’d help to make the longest chain, show her how to join the two ends to make a crown. ‘Your name sounds a bit like the Queen’s,’ she once said.

  ‘What’s the Queen called?’

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  Mummy has put her red swimsuit on and her long blonde hair is tied in a bun. She walks as if she’s still angry, towards the river. She doesn’t stop to say, ‘Hello.’

  But when she’s finished her swim she might like a posy of daisies to arrange in the little glass vase on the kitchen table. She always smiles when someone gives her flowers. Even now.

  There are buttercups further up the bank that would look pretty with the daisies. Yellow and white. Not blue. Like the dress Charlotte was wearing when they found her, just lying there in the grass.

  Daddy is in the river with Mummy now, but he’s wearing all his clothes. He’s shouting, even louder than before. He grabs Mummy’s hair, her hands, her neck. Pushes, pulls, drags. Her arms look very white as they come out of the water and her eyes are wide open. She looks scared but she doesn’t say anything any more.

  Then her head goes under and her hair comes loose, floats like golden seaweed.

  He looks up. He thinks the little girl standing very still on the riverbank with her hands over her ears is too young to understand what she’s seeing, but he’s wrong. She knows it’s happening again.

  She wants to go home.

  She holds onto the daisies and runs.

  * * *

  Grandma says Daddy has had to go away for a few days with his work, but if that’s true why did a policeman take him? Why does the policeman stand next to him at Mummy’s funeral?

  Wherever it is that Mummy and Charlotte have gone, she wishes she could go with them.

  One day she will.

  One

  NATASHA WATCHED AS the girl walked barefoot through the damp grass towards the River Windrush. She was dressed in an antique gown of dark brocade embroidered with fine silver thread. With wild flowers tangled in her hair, a bouquet clutched in her hands and the hem of her skirt trailing across the tussocky meadow, she looked like a lost bride. Bewildered, as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was.

  She stepped into the water, her skirt billowing around her like a crinoline as she waded through reeds towards the overhanging branches of a willow. The water and the sky were the colour of iron, and there was no shelter from the brisk wind sweeping down from the Cotswold Hills and the huddle of silent, grey stone cottages of Little Barrington. The river was no more than four feet wide, with pools of still water. In summer it sometimes dwindled to little more than a brook, but now, in the second week of December, it was running high. Midstream, it was churning with eddies and currents.

  The water was soon almost up to the girl’s waist, the sodden material of her dress starting to drag at her, giving her movements a dreamlike slow motion. She took another step, deeper, as if she was walking off the edge of a cliff, into nothing. She was suddenly submerged up to her neck. When she lay back, the water making a pillow for her head, her hair swirled like a mermaid’s around her pale upturned face.

  ‘It’ll be over soon, Bethany. No more pain and sorrow.’ Adam Mason was standing on the riverbank a few feet from Natasha. His voice was soft and low, hypnotic.

  Bethany let go of the flowers, daisies, fritillary, forget-me-nots and poppies, and they drifted on the currents, some catching in her hair and in the wet folds of her gown which floated on the river’s surface on pockets of air.

  ‘You’ll never grow old now.’

  Bethany arched her neck, parted her lips slightly, as if to sing a last silent song.

  Adam Mason moved swiftly behind the tripod. There was the click of a camera shutter, like a spell being broken.

  Natasha realised she’d been holding her breath. She slid her fingers quickly under Boris’s collar to make sure the dog didn’t make a bid for the water and an impromptu place in the photograph.

  ‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ Adam said. ‘Drowning is the most peaceful way to die.’

  Easy for you to say, Natasha thought. And how exactly do you know that? Has someone come back to tell you?

  Bethany was sculling with her hands now, just below the surf
ace of the water, out of the lens’s sight, pushing against the current to hold her position, to maintain the illusion of drifting, of drowning, while making sure she did neither.

  Natasha had taken a skinny dip in the Windrush in winter on the odd occasion. Just for the hell of it. The chill of the water was exhilarating, but you couldn’t stay in too long. She dredged up memories of life-saving lessons in the public pool, a gold medal gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. She wondered if she should kick off her boots now, just in case.

  She glanced at Adam Mason as he, rather too leisurely she thought, adjusted the focus on the camera and its angle on the tripod before reeling off another round of shots. With fair curled hair, and dressed in black jeans and jacket, he looked as if he went to bed at dawn and lived on caffeine, was almost as pale as the girl. His frame was as slight as a girl’s too, but wiry and tense.

  ‘Great,’ he said, and Bethany flipped over, started making her way back towards the bank.

  This was certainly one of the most unusual meetings Natasha had had with a prospective client, which was saying something. Bethany Marshall had got in touch just over a week ago, said she’d be coming to the Cotswolds for this photo shoot and suggested that might be a good time to get together to discuss researching her family history. So far, Natasha hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about that. She was in no great hurry though. There was a pile of work waiting on her desk, certificates and pedigrees to be sorted, but they could all wait a little longer. Just now she’d rather be out in the fresh air, as far away from her cottage as possible.

  Bethany emerged from the water, her hair and gown streaming, lips almost blue, like a ghostly survivor from a long ago shipwreck.

  ‘We’ve got it,’ Adam said, glancing up from the camera. He gazed at Bethany for a moment. ‘You looked really beautiful in there.’ He said it with a depth of intimacy, as if they were alone, as if no one else was listening.

  Bethany smiled back at him. She seemed shaken, as if the experience had been a little too realistic. She’d freeze to death if she wasn’t careful.

  Natasha grabbed the towel that lay on the ground and handed it over. ‘Let me help you with your dress.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Bethany dabbed at the ends of her hair, turned round slowly. As Natasha started unfastening the dozens of tiny buttons and hooks and eyes she could feel the girl shivering.

  ‘That was interesting! I thought photographers just told you to say cheese.’

  ‘Adam says you can only do it properly if you really get into the part, like an actress.’

  ‘It’s a reproduction of Millais’ Ophelia, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She dragged a couple of daisies from her hair. With her fingernail she made a small, careful incision in one of the stalks, like the eye of a needle.

  ‘Are you at college?’ Natasha asked.

  ‘I’m working in a florists until I decide what I want to do.’ She threaded the daisies together. ‘I like the way people always smile when someone gives them flowers.’

  The dress fell in a circle at Bethany’s feet and she stepped out of it, wearing only white bra and knickers and a silver Celtic cross on a black rope around her neck. She was small and frail. Her ribs and a delicate tracery of lilac veins were clearly visible beneath her pale skin. Facing Natasha now, she wrapped the towel around herself. ‘You must think I’m as mad as Ophelia.’

  Natasha smiled. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Thanks for coming. I’m sorry you’ve had to wait around.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Bethany bent down to a crumpled pile of clothes, dragged on a loose black velveteen skirt and black shirt, then flipped the cross so it hung outside.

  Natasha was reminded of the kind of outfits she used to wear as a student. ‘I’ve done quite a bit of research on different branches of the Marshalls,’ she said. ‘The Gloucestershire ones mostly.’

  Bethany hugged her arms around herself, glanced over her shoulder at Adam, then stared down at her bare feet. She spoke very quietly. ‘You have to know a person’s full name to do their family history?’

  ‘It’s kind of crucial, yes.’ Natasha hoped that hadn’t come out wrong. She’d meant to break the ice, not be flippant. ‘Father or mother’s details would be a start though.’

  ‘My surname’s not really Marshall.’

  With some effort Natasha resisted the urge to ask questions, such as what was her real name. Experience had taught her that silence was more likely to produce answers.

  But not yet evidently. Bethany raised her arms to lift her wet hair away from her neck. As she did so, she turned her face towards the sky in which a faint crescent moon had already appeared, even though it was only mid-afternoon. ‘Did you know, lunatic literally means moon-struck because people used to believe that the moon made you mad. That’s quite believable if you think about it. When the moon controls the tides, and up to eighty per cent of the human body is water.’

  ‘I can see the sense in that.’ Natasha wondered how old Bethany was, late teens or early twenties perhaps, around the same age as her sister, Abby. ‘Pagans also believe that the moon has the power to heal. Perhaps that means it’s healthy to be a little crazy.’

  Bethany gave a faint smile. ‘I’d best go and fetch a jumper.’ She slipped her feet into a pair of black canvas pumps and set off across the bumpy grass to where a car, a charcoal grey Lancia Delta, was parked on the track beneath a clump of trees.

  Adam Mason was folding down the tripod, packing away cameras.

  Natasha carefully lifted the heavy dress, spread out the skirt a little to help it dry. The embroidery and fabric were exquisite. It looked at least 150 years old, had no doubt been worn once for balls, or for a wedding, in the days before Queen Victoria made it fashionable to marry in white. It deserved more respect than to have been dunked in the Windrush.

  She stepped closer to the river, crouched down and trailed her fingers in the water. It was like an ice floe. Enticing. It would make your heart race, your skin tight and tingly. You’d feel your muscles clench and the air squeezed out of your lungs. But after a while it wouldn’t feel so cold. Just a scintillating feeling of release, numbing, soothing, almost as if you’d left your body behind. She was tempted to strip off right now, never mind that Adam Mason was standing a few metres away.

  Instead she stood, took the stiff white envelope out of her pocket, a Christmas card to Marcus, stamped and addressed but still unposted. She tore it slowly in half, then put the two halves together and tore again, and again. She scattered the pieces onto the water where they bobbed like rose petals, became waterlogged as they hurtled down stream, and quickly disappeared. Following the ancient custom, a sacrifice to the water, an offering to the river gods. She’d been carrying the envelope around for a week. Burning a hole in her pocket, or rather her heart. It was satisfying, destroying it like that. For at least ten seconds.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Beyond introducing himself when she first arrived half an hour or so ago, the first words Adam Mason had spoken to Natasha.

  She flashed a quick look at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘I’m not sure. Sometimes I think we all have.’

  He stopped what he was doing and stared at her. She managed to keep a deadly straight face for a few seconds, then had to give way to a smile.

  Adam barked a laugh.

  Sometimes a little flippancy worked wonders. When she’d started out as a genealogist seven years ago, Natasha had felt almost sick with nervousness before a meeting with new or potential clients, or worse, an interview with one of their distant relations. She’d never found it particularly easy to make polite conversation, harder still to ask people she’d never met the most personal questions about relationships and family secrets and stories, find ways to coax their most precious and painful memories out of them. But she had been determined from the start that everyone would think it was as natural and easy to her as breathing. Which they usually did.

  She looked do
wn at the water again, the trailing branches of the willow. It reminded her of another painting. Hanging over her bed as a teenager she’d had a print of Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott, drifting downstream in her death-barge. She’d seen it in a shop in Bakewell that sold hand-painted greetings cards and antiquarian maps, and something about it had instantly attracted her.

  The click of the shutter made her jump.

  ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ Adam commanded. ‘Don’t move.’

  Natasha took a deliberate step back, flashed her eyes at him. ‘Or what? You’ll shoot?’

  OK, not a particularly great joke, but it deserved a smile at least.

  ‘Can you get the dog to stand a little closer to you?’

  ‘His name’s Boris.’ Natasha grudgingly rummaged in her pocket and found a biscuit, cupped it in her palm and tempted Boris to shift closer to snuffle at it.

  ‘Look down at the water like you were doing just now, as if it’s a window to another world.’

  Who did he think he was, David Lean?

  Natasha dutifully inclined her head. There was the click, click of the shutter.

  Adam set the camera down on top of a silver flight case that lay on the grass.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Natasha said, sarcastically.

  He dragged a cigarette packet and lighter out of his jacket pocket, offered Natasha one, then, when she shook her head, he stuck one in his mouth, flicked the lighter and cupped his hand around the flame while he inhaled. ‘You don’t like having your photograph taken?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘You should do.’

  ‘Thanks. I think.’

  He flicked ash onto the grass. ‘You’d rather I’d said you were beautiful? Only if I did you’d think I was trying to chat you up.’

  ‘Would I now?’

  ‘If I passed you in the street and asked you to come back to my studio and pose you’d say no, wouldn’t you?’ Too bloody right. He came closer, dropped his voice. ‘It’s a shame, don’t you think, that compliments are so often taken as a threat?’

  She shrugged, tried not to sound unnerved. ‘That’s life.’

  He held out the camera. ‘Take a look.’

  It was one of the latest digital models, with a small screen in the back.