The Warrior’s Princess

‘He’s got nothing to do with it, Dan.’ She was shredding a tissue.

‘You were quarrelling with him at the disco. I saw you.’

‘Not seriously.’

‘It looked pretty serious to me.’ He narrowed his eyes. There was a moment of silence. ‘Why did you and Will break up?’

‘That’s none of your business, Dan. I don’t want to talk about this.’

‘He looked pretty pissed off when you left after the disco. He could have followed you and Ashley home.’ There was another long moment of silence. ‘It was Ashley! Ashley did something!’ Dan said softly at last. ‘The little bastard! What happened, Jess?’

‘Nothing.’ She clenched her fists. ‘Leave it, Dan.’

There was another pause. She was picturing Ash, by the railings near the gate to the square. The bow. The arrogant way he had looked up at the window of her flat. The blown kiss. She tried to force the image out of her head, but it refused to go. She had danced with him. She liked him; she had encouraged him. Perhaps she had given him the wrong idea. She sighed miserably. He was a lad with so much potential, set to get top grades. If she accused him and she was wrong and it wasn’t him a police enquiry would destroy him anyway. It would never go away.

‘So, you’ve made up your mind.’ Dan gave up asking questions. ‘You are definitely going to leave?’ He was watching her so closely she felt he was reading her mind. She nodded.

He continued to look at her for several seconds in silence. ‘OK. I’ll make it right with Brian.’ He seemed to have decided not to argue with her any more. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get a brilliant reference, I’ll see to that, if that’s what you want. Looking on the bright side, you’ll probably get a fantastic position in some private girls’ school. Just right for you.’ He gave a small sharp laugh and she frowned at the sudden bitterness of his tone. ‘Take the summer off, Jess,’ he went on. ‘Forget all about whatever it was that has upset you so much and start again in the autumn!’ Leaning forward, he patted her knee again. ‘Whatever it was, Jess, get over it. Don’t think about it. Put it all behind you.’

2 (#u90907c20-6df2-52a2-a1c6-6b23225d6a1e)

Stephanie Kendal was seated at the work table, painting designs onto a tray of small ornate mugs ready for the final glaze. Glancing up at the window, she frowned. The sunlight had gone from the garden. Long shadows were advancing across the grass towards the studio where she sat listening to the radio. Leaning forward she turned it off. In the sudden silence she could hear a thrush singing in the distance through the open door. Slightly shorter, slightly plumper and slightly older than her sister, Jessica, there was a definite family likeness in the two women, inherited from their mother. From Aurelia Kendal they also took their love of literature, their artistic talent, their charm and their unconventionality. As a reaction against their mother’s decision to live as a hermit in a small cottage in the wilds of the Basses-Pyrénées when she was not bestriding the world in her capacity as travel writer and journalist, both her daughters had gravitated to inner London after graduation and teacher’s training college. Jess was still there. Steph had caved in, turned her back on the bright lights and spent her latest divorce settlement on this Welsh dream, a small mountain farmhouse not very far from the place where her mother had once lived before she had decided to swap the hills of Wales for the mountains of France.

But she wasn’t sure any more if she had done the right thing.

Setting down her brush she reached for a paint rag and wiped her fingers, frowning a little as she did so. The sound had been so small she had barely heard it over the music on the radio. A click, no more, from the far side of the studio.

She scanned the shelves of pottery, the bags of clay, the jars of glaze, the tins of paint on the table by the wall. The rough stones of the old byre were white-washed, the medieval window slits glazed, the crook beams high above her head brushed, with here and there an ornate iron hook from which were suspended the light fittings and a glass mobile which jingled faintly in the draught, a gift from one of her many admirers. There it was again. A click, followed by a rattle. A bird or an animal must have come in through the open door while she was working and be poking around on the shelves. Quietly she pushed back her tall stool and stood up.

Several minutes of careful searching produced no clue as to the source of the noise but she was feeling more and more uneasy. She could sense something or someone there. Watching her. She could feel the stare of eyes on the back of her neck.

‘Hello?’ Her voice even to herself sounded nervous.

Going to the door she stared out. The byre sat at right angles to the house with its white-washed walls and roof of old Welsh slate, joined to the kitchen by a newly built passageway. The door at which she was standing led directly outside into the L-shaped former farmyard where her car sat surrounded by terracotta pots of lavender and rosemary. She frowned. The total isolation of this old mountain farmhouse had been one of its attractions when she bought the place and mostly she adored the quietness, though admittedly the peace was often short-lived as a succession of friends came through her doors. But lately, when she was on her own, something had begun to unsettle her. This feeling that she was being watched. That someone or something was in the house with her. Not a human being. She could deal with that, she reckoned. No, it was something more subtle. More sinister. It wasn’t the noises, although she found herself listening constantly, aware of them even over the sound of the radio. No, it was something else.

She turned back into the studio and caught her breath. Just for a fraction of a second a shadow had moved near the back table. She blinked and it was gone. Or had never been there at all.

Outside she heard a crow calling as it flew across the valley, its shadow a swift flick across the warm stones of the yard. That was what she had seen. The shadow of a bird. Relieved, she turned to go back into the house just as in the kitchen the phone began to ring.

‘Steph, it’s Kim.’ The bubbly voice seemed to fill the place with sunshine. ‘Have you thought about my invitation? Come to Rome, Steph. Please. You can work here! Whatever you like. I’m rattling round in this apartment on my own. All my friends have gone away for the summer, it’s weeks before I’m leaving for the Lakes and I need you!’

Steph glanced uncomfortably over her shoulder at the door which led to the studio. When Kim had first issued her invitation she had hesitated. Rome in summer would be unbearably hot and noisy. Kim, widowed after less than ten years of marriage to her wonderful, too-good-to-be-true, adoring older man and ensconced in her beautiful flat in a palazzo, no less, and with his considerable fortune all to herself, just could not be as desolate as she made out. But then again perhaps she was and perhaps the lure of Rome was too exciting to ignore. After all, what had Steph to lose? At most a week or so’s production of her pots. Less, if she and Kim no longer got on as they had in the old days when they were all at college together. Half an hour later she had switched on her computer, booked her flight and was already rifling through her cupboard for her case.

Jess smiled ruefully as her sister’s voice rattled on until finally there was a pause.

‘Jess? Are you there? Aren’t you pleased for me? You knew Kim and I had kept in touch, didn’t you.’ Already there was a lilt of Wales in Steph’s voice.

‘That’s fantastic, Steph. Only …’ Jess grimaced. ‘Only, I was going to ask if I could come to Ty Bran to stay for a bit over the summer. I’m fed up with London and a bit desperate for a break. I want to go somewhere no one can find me. I want some peace to do some painting. Maybe rethink my lifestyle. I’m considering a career change. See if I can hack it as a painter.’ No point in telling her the real reason, spoiling Steph’s day; no point in making her feel she should cancel her holiday.

‘But that’s brilliant!’ Steph’s excitement dulled her usually perceptive reading of her sister’s moods. ‘Come here and welcome. In fact I’d be really pleased to have someone look after the place. My pot plants will need watering. If you come, that’s perfect! You can have some peace to do all the painting and thinking you want!’

Putting down the phone Jess sat for a moment staring towards the window. Was she doing the right thing? She was allowing someone to chase her out of the job she loved; out of the flat she adored, out of the city she had come to enjoy and she was allowing him to think he had got off Scot free. He had got off Scot free. There would be no police. No identification. No repercussions for him at all.

As the sunlight shone in through the window, focusing on her pale green patterned rug, illuminating in minute detail each small criss-crossed shape of the design, she heard the downstairs door bang and footsteps on the stairs. She held her breath. Slowly the steps grew closer, steady, loud, masculine. She swallowed, sweat breaking out between her shoulder blades. Had she locked her front door? Surely she had. She had become obsessive about it. She sat, unable to move, her eyes fixed on the door handle, hearing the sound reverberate round the flat. The steps reached the landing outside and she heard them stop. For a moment there was total silence, then slowly the steps began again, walking up towards the next flight. Only then did she realise that she had stopped breathing altogether. She was shaking from head to foot. Jumping to her feet, she went out into the hallway and checked the chain on the door. It was safely in place, as was the bolt and the deadlock. It was then, as usual, that her fear was replaced by anger. He had done this to her! No one … no one had the right to terrorise her like this, to make her feel vulnerable, threatened, in her own home! It was outrageous. She hated the man who had done this to her, and she hated herself for having been made a victim. She would not be a victim. Somehow she had to regain her confidence.

It was better outside. She felt safe on the bustling, noisy street and in the crowded shops and sitting over a latte at a table outside one of the little pavement cafés, watching the pigeons plodding fearlessly amongst the feet of passers by, dodging between the wheels of buggies and bicycles. The pub across the road was festooned with banners, shredded by the winter wind and still hanging there months later. Two meals for the price of one. Watch today’s match here.

Crowds of people waited in front of her to cross the road, constrained by the railing which stopped them spilling into the traffic. The lights changed, they flowed across; behind them another group built up again. Above her head, a tattered silver balloon hung like a dead bird in the branches of a tree, flapping amongst the leaves. At the end of the road the traffic whirled on an endless choreographed dance around the mini roundabout. She sipped her coffee, reluctant to move. The noise was unstoppable; deafening. Engines; music; the cooing of pigeons on the ledges of the buildings high above her head; people talking and laughing and shouting and swearing; the warning siren of a reversing lorry; mobiles ringing every few seconds, their insistent ring tones an endless selfish cacophony against escalating raucous yells.

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.