“Hmm.” Here was a slight dilemma. By asking what she wanted to ask next, Jude would be admitting that Carole had reported back every detail of her visit to the Summersdale house, and there were some people who would find that an invasion of privacy. Still, it was worth the risk. “Another thing my friend said, Bridget…was that, having met you and your husband, and Arnold and Eithne…”
“Yes?”
“…you seemed to be the only one genuinely worried by what might have happened to Nathan.”
There was a silence, and Jude feared she might have made a misjudgement. But Bridget proved to be more concerned about the boy than about having her affairs discussed by total strangers. “I know what you mean, but that’s very much a Locke way of doing things. With their solidarity there also comes a huge confidence, so they really can’t imagine that anything dreadful’s happened to Nathan. He’s a Locke – he’ll be all right.”
“I don’t suppose you think it’s possible…” Again Jude was treading on potentially dangerous ground, “…that they’re confident because they actually know where he is…they know he’s all right?”
“No. Absolutely not.” But then came a concession. “I did actually suspect that at first. Not very loyal of me, was it? But straight after the murder was discovered, my immediate thought was that Nathan had taken himself off to Treboddick and was lying low down there. That would have been a very Locke solution to the problem. Whatever goes wrong with anyone in the family, a few days at Treboddick is always reckoned to be what’s required. That’s the universal
“But the police were also suspicious and they went down to Treboddick…searched all the cottages and found nothing.”
“You’ve got a lot of cottages down there?”
“A sort of terrace of four. Old miners’ cottages. Rowley’s parents used to own all of them. Now one of them’s permanently for the family, the other three are let.”
“During the summer holidays?”
“And any other time of year anyone’ll take them. Mopsa lives down there and she’s supposedly in charge of organizing the lets.” She didn’t sound over-confident of her stepdaughter’s organizational skills. “Anyway, once I knew that the police had searched Treboddick, I stopped being suspicious of the rest of the family. They don’t know where Nathan is. They’ve just convinced themselves that, because he’s a Locke, nothing bad can happen to him.”
“It must be rather wonderful to have that kind of confidence.”
Bridget Locke grinned wryly. “Well, it is…and it isn’t. Rowley and Arnold feel more secure in the family circle, being judged by family standards, than they do in the real world. So, if something goes wrong, like say when Rowley lost his teaching job, rather than going out into the competitive marketplace trying to get another one, he shrinks into himself. The world of Treboddick and the Wheel Quest is more benign than the real one.”
“Hmm.” Time, Jude decided, to get back to the purported reason for her visit. “Well, let’s have a look at this back, shall we?”
Obediently, Bridget Locke rolled back the duvet and lay on her front. Jude removed the pillows and began very gently to pass her hands up the line of the woman’s vertebrae. Not actually touching the skin, she waited to feel the angry energy of pain rising from the body. After the scan, she asked Bridget to perform various movements and tell her which ones hurt. Then, rolling up the nightdress and anointing the shapely back with some aromatic oil she had brought with her, Jude started to do a deep hands-on massage.
The effect was almost immediate. Bridget Locke’s body relaxed, and her breathing settled into a slow, regular rhythm. Her limbs twitched and, within minutes, she was fast asleep. She really had been exhausted.
As Jude tiptoed out onto the landing, her mind was full. She’d dealt with a lot of lower back pain, and this was the first sufferer she’d seen who was more comfortable propped up on pillows than lying flat. Nor had she seen many who could shake their heads and throw off duvets with quite such abandon.
Whatever Bridget Locke’s reason had been for calling Jude to the house, there certainly was nothing wrong with her back.
? Death under the Dryer ?
Twenty-One
To leave while a client was asleep would not be the proper professional procedure, and yet to wake her seemed unnecessarily cruel. Bridget Locke’s main problem was exhaustion, and the best remedy for that was a large dose of rest. Besides, Jude could hear the excited sounds of the two girls playing in the sitting room. She had been granted more information than she had ever anticipated from their stepmother. Maybe there was more to come from Chloe and Sylvia.
“Your mother’s asleep. I’ll just wait here until she wakes up.”
The girls hardly reacted to Jude’s words as she settled herself into an armchair. They seemed to share the Locke lack of interest in people outside the charmed circle of their own family. And, as their stepmother had predicted, they were deeply absorbed in their game. Jude sat back to watch and listen to the two little, uniformed Pre-Raphaelites. From their conversation she deduced that the one who had let her in was Chloe (aka Zebba) and the smaller one Sylvia (aka Tamil).
Carole’s description left her in no doubt that they were once again playing the Wheel Quest, and she found the mechanics of the game quite as puzzling as her neighbour had. The action still took place between the Kingdom of Verendia and the Forest of Black Fangdar, but, with more time to look at the board, Jude could now see that the main port of Verendia appeared to be Karmenka, over which loomed an extensive castle called ‘Biddet Rock’.
Though she could not possibly understand the detail of what was happening, she did after a while work out that the game concerned a battle between Verendia and Black Fangdar and that the two powers represented – surprise, surprise – Good and Evil. Chloe was playing for Verendia and Sylvia for Black Fangdar. They moved their cardboard figurines around the map with great speed and no discernible logic. And they talked in the incomprehensible language Carole had described. ‘The Ordeal of Furminal’ was again referred to, as were ‘the Vales of Aspinglad’ and ‘the blood of Merkerin’. And there was a lot more where that came from.
So far as the confused spectator could piece together the action, the forces of Good, in the person of Prince Fimbador, were being pursued by the evil hordes of Gadrath Pezzekan, who of course represented Evil. Prince Fimbador had suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Edras Helford, and was now being hounded by the enemy army of gedros, jarks, monitewks and various other monsters. He, cut off from his comrades, had retreated to the stronghold of Biddet Rock. His ghastly opponents were at the gates of the castle and about to break them down.
“Yield, Prince Fimbador!” lisped Sylvia. “You cannot resist Gadrath Pezzekan and the power of Black Fangdar! Hand over the Grail and your life will be spared!”
“My life is worthless,” Chloe lisped back, “if the Grail ends up in the evil hands of the Merkerin! I defy you and your false accusations! You have not yet defeated me, Gadrath Pezzekan!”
“Oh no? You are alone. Your army is vanquished. You are outnumbered by thousands to one. And now you are cornered in the Castle of Biddet Rock like a rat in a trap. There is no possible escape for you, Prince Fimbador. Yield the Grail to me!”
“Never! Biddet Rock still has its secrets. Pursue me if you will, but you will never find me in the labyrinth of the Wheel Path. No one has ever found anyone in the Wheel Path. No one has even found the Key of Clove’s Halo nor used it to open Face-Peril Gate, which is the secret entrance to the Wheel Chamber. There I will go, carrying the Grail with me for safe-keeping. And from there I will escape, and come back to vanquish you another day, Gadrath Pezzekan!”
“You’re bluffing, Prince Fimbador. Already my jarks have broken through the flimsy gates of – ”
Quite how that particular Grail-quest might have ended Jude never found out, because at that moment Bridget Locke, yawning and with a towelling robe wrapped around her, entered the sitting room. As if a switch had been flicked, Chloe and Sylvia were instantly silent.
“Sorry, Jude,” said their stepmother. “I do hope the girls have been keeping you amused.”
“You could say that.”
“I’m so sorry, though. I just passed out.”
“The best thing that could have happened to you. Lots of sleep, that’s what you need, Bridget. How does the
