Lady of Hay: An enduring classic – gripping, atmospheric and utterly compelling

Ceecliff had turned away, patting her injured lampshade with a proprietorial hand. ‘There was no one else in here, Jo. Only Nick and I.’

Jo crossed to the door, steadying herself with her hand on the back of a chair. Swiftly she closed it. Leaning against it she looked at Ceecliff.

‘Someone tried to strangle me this afternoon.’

Her grandmother pursed her lips. ‘Jo, dear –’

‘I am not imagining it. Out there in the conservatory. Nick was massaging my shoulders. Then –’ She shrugged wildly. ‘Someone tried to kill me!’

‘Nick was the only person there, Jo.’ Ceecliff came towards her slowly and put her hands on Jo’s arms. ‘Are you accusing Nick?’ She was scandalised.

‘No, of course not.’ Jo’s voice had fallen to a whisper.

‘Did you tell David all this?’

‘I said my neck hurt.’ Jo shook her head.

‘I think he would have been able to tell, Jo, if anyone had tried to kill you. There would have been bruises on your throat for one thing.’ Ceecliff moved towards the sofa and sat down on the edge of it. ‘I think Nick was right to be worried about this hypnosis, Jo. You are too susceptible –’

Jo flung herself away from the door. ‘This has nothing to do with the hypnosis! I wasn’t imagining it! You would know if someone had tried to kill you!’ She put her hands to her throat. ‘There was someone else there. Someone else, Ceecliff. It can’t have been Nick. He wouldn’t … He wouldn’t want to kill me. Besides, there was someone else in the room when I woke up. You must have seen him. You must! For God’s sake, he was standing right behind Nick!’

‘Joey, there was no one there,’ Ceecliff said gently. ‘If there had been, I would have seen him.’

‘You think I’m imagining it?’

‘I think you’re tired, emotionally upset, and what we as children used to call thunder-strung.’ Ceecliff smiled.

She turned as Nick pushed open the door. He went straight to Jo, who had tensed nervously as he came into the room. ‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ She forced herself to smile at him.

‘But she is going to let you drive her back, Nick, after you’ve both had some tea,’ Ceecliff said firmly. ‘She can come and pick up her car another time.’

Jo swallowed. Her eyes had gone automatically to Nick’s hands, resting on the back of the chair. They were firm, strong hands, tanned from sailing, slightly stained now with lichen from the rain-soaked wood of the summerhouse door.

As if feeling her gaze on them Nick slipped them into the pockets of his jeans. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never had a woman faint at my feet before. It was all very dramatic. And you still look very pale.’

Ceecliff stood up. ‘She’s fine,’ she said firmly. ‘You know where the kitchen is, Nick? Go and put the kettle on for me, there’s a dear. I’ll be out in a minute.’

As he left the room, Jo caught her hand. ‘Don’t tell Nick what I said, will you. He’ll think it is something to do with the hypnosis too, and I’m not going to fight with him all the way back to London.’

Ceecliff smiled. ‘I shan’t tell him, Jo. But I think you should,’ she said slowly. ‘I really think you should.’

The storm crackled viciously across Hyde Park, highlighting the lush green of the trees against the bruised sky. Sam stood looking out of the window of Nick’s flat in South Audley Street feeling the claustrophobia of London all around him. He sighed. If it weren’t for that keyhole glimpse of the park up the narrow street in front of the flat, he would not be able to stay here. It calmed and restored the quiet sanity of self-perception. He spared a moment’s regretful thought for his high-ceilinged flat in Edinburgh with its glorious view across the Queen’s Park towards the Salisbury Crags, then turning from the window he drew the curtains against the storm and switched on the light. Throwing himself down on the sofa, he picked up his third glass of Scotch and reached for the pile of books stacked on the coffee table.

The first which came to hand was A History of Wales by John Edward Lloyd, M.A., volume two. Turning to the index he began to look for William de Braose.

‘What the hell is wrong, Jo?’ Nick glanced across at her as he swung the car at last onto the M11. The windscreen wipers were cutting great arcs in the wet carpets of rain which swept towards them off the road. For the second time, as he reached forward to slot a new cassette into place, he had noticed her shrink away from his hand. And she was obviously having trouble with her throat.

With an effort she smiled. ‘Sorry. I’m still feeling rather odd. My head is splitting.’ She closed her eyes as the car filled with the bright cold notes of Vivaldi. Don’t talk. Don’t let him see you’re afraid. It did not happen. It was a hallucination – or imagination. Nick is no killer and the other … the face with the hard, angry blue eyes and the beard. It was not a face she knew. Not from this world, nor from that other time of wind and snow and spinning distances. It was not William, nor the young and handsome Richard. It was a double vision; a dream. Part of the dream where someone had tried to kill her. Something out of her own imagination, like the pain.

‘The traffic is building.’ Nick’s voice hung for a moment in the silence, coming from a long way away as the tape came to an end. He leaned forward and switched it off before it had a chance to start playing again. ‘You should have stayed with Celia. You’re worn out, you know.’

She forced her eyes open, realising that the engine was idling. Cars were round them on every side; the end-of-weekend rush back to London, earlier than usual because of the bad weather, had brought the traffic to a standstill.

‘You’ve been asleep.’ He glanced across at her. ‘Do you feel any better?’ The light in the sky was already fading.

Jo eased her position slightly in the seat. ‘I’ll be OK. I’m sorry I’m being such a nuisance. I can’t think what came over me.’

‘That damn hypnosis came over you.’ Nick eased the car forward a few yards behind the car in front and braked. His elbow out of the open window, he drummed his fingers in irritation on the roof above his head. ‘I hope this has finally convinced you, Jo, of the idiocy of persisting with this research. Sam must have spelled out the risks for you.’

Jo coloured angrily. ‘What the devil has my fainting to do with the fact that I was hypnotised a couple of days ago? Oh Nick, drop the subject, please!’

She hunched her shoulders defensively. How was it possible to feel so many conflicting emotions for the man sitting next to her? Love. Anger. Despair. And now fear. Real fear, which would not listen to the reason which told her it was groundless. She knew Nick had not tried to kill her. The thought was farcical. But if not his, then whose were the hands which had encircled her neck? And if they had been imaginary, then why had she imagined them? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps being hypnotised had some delayed effect. Some dangerous, delayed effect. She shuddered violently.

Half of her wanted to beg Nick to pull onto the hard shoulder and put his arms around her and hold her safe, but even as she glanced towards him she felt again that irrational shiver of fear.

It was another hour before they turned into Cornwall Gardens. She had already extricated her key from her bag and was clutching it tightly in her hand as the car drew to a halt and she swung the door open. ‘Please, Nick, don’t come in.’

She almost threw herself onto the pavement. ‘I’m going to take an aspirin and go to bed. I’ll call you, OK?’ She slammed the door and ran towards the steps, not looking round to see if he followed. She had banged the front door shut behind her before he had levered himself out of the car.

Nick shrugged. He stood where he was in the middle of the road, his hand resting on the car’s roof, waiting until he saw the lights go on in the room behind the first-floor balcony doors, then he climbed back in and drove away. He was very worried.

Jo double-locked the door behind her. Throwing down her bag she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

Flu. It had to be flu. That would explain everything. A horrible, vicious summer flu which had given her a few fleeting moments of delirium before changing direction and locating in her throat. She found a Beecham’s Powder in the back of the cupboard and tipped it into a glass, filling it up with hot water. Carrying the glass into the bathroom, she turned on the taps full and began to take off her dress. The mirror steamed over. As she stepped into the warm silky water she could feel her headache already beginning to relax its grip and cautiously she sipped the liquid. It made her feel slightly sick, but she forced herself to drink it all and then she lay back, staring up at the fawn patterned tiles on the bathroom walls with their delicate misty swirls.

It was twenty minutes before she walked slowly into her bedroom, wrapped in her bathrobe, and pulled the heavy sash windows up. Outside, the night was very warm and still. Darkness had come early with the heavy cloud and there was an almost tropical humidity about the air. She could hear the sound of flamenco coming from the mews and, suddenly, a roar of laughter out of the dark.

Half drawing the curtains, she switched on her bedside light with a sigh and untied her bathrobe, slipping it from her bare shoulders.

The light was dim and the small antique mirror which stood on her low chest was the other side of the room, but even from where she stood she could see. Her body was evenly tanned save for the slight bikini mark, but now there were other marks, marks which had not been there before. Her neck was swollen, and covered with angry bruises. For a moment she could not move. She could not breathe. She stood transfixed, her eyes on the mirror, then she ran naked to the bathroom, dragging the main pull-switch on, flooding the room with harsh cold light from the fluorescent strip in the ceiling. She grabbed her bath towel and frantically scrubbed at the condensation which still clung to the large mirror, then she looked at herself again. Her neck was violently bruised. She could even make out the individual fingermarks in the contusions on the front of her throat.

She stared at herself for a long time before walking slowly to the living room and, kneeling down beside the phone, which still lay on the coffee table, she did not even realise she had memorised Carl Bennet’s number until she had dialled it.

There was a series of clicks, then the answering machine spoke. Jo slammed the receiver down and glanced up at the clock on her desk. It was nearly midnight.

For a moment she contemplated ringing Sam. Her fingers hovered over the dial, then her hands dropped to her sides. Nick might have gone back to the flat, and besides, she knew without a shadow of doubt that whatever Sam or Nick might think she had made up her mind to return to Carl Bennet.

Slowly she made her way back towards her bedroom. She was shaking violently, beads of perspiration standing out on her forehead. Somewhere in the distance she heard a rumble of thunder. The storm was coming back. She walked to the window and stood looking out at the London night. It was only at the sound of a soft appreciative whistle from somewhere in the banks of dark windows behind the mews that she realised she was standing there naked in the lamplight.

With a wry smile she turned away and switched off the light, then she climbed into bed and lay staring up at the darkness.

It was very early when she woke and the room was cold and fresh from the wide-open windows. Shivering, Jo got up and put on her robe. For a moment she did not dare look at her reflection in the mirror. The pain in her throat had gone as had her headache and all she felt now was an overwhelming longing for coffee.

In the bathroom she dashed cold water over her face and reached for her toothbrush. Only then did she raise her eyes to the mirror. There wasn’t a single mark on her throat.

At the flat in South Audley Street the following evening Nick threw himself down into the armchair facing the windows and held out his hand for the drink Sam had poured for him.