Perhaps he was right. Perhaps being hypnotized 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 toward him she felt again that 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, okay?” She slammed the door and ran toward the steps, not looking 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 second-floor balcony doors, then he climbed back in and drove away. He was very worried.
Wrapped in her bathrobe, Jo 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.
After 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 that stood on her low chest was on 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 that 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 light-pull 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 that 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. Kneeling down beside the phone that still lay on the coffee table, she did not even realize she had memorized Carl Bennet’s number until she had dialed 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.
Slowly she made her way back toward 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 realized 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 apartment 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.
“I see it didn’t take you long to find my booze,” he said with weary good humor.
“You can afford it.” Sam looked at him inquiringly. “So, what did you want to see me about? It must be important if it brings you here from the lovely Miss Curzon.”
Nick sat forward, clasping his glass loosely between his fingers. He sighed. “I haven’t seen Judy for two days, Sam. If you want to know, I spent last night in a hotel. I went to Judy’s, then I couldn’t face going in.” He paused. “I want to talk to you about Jo. How did you find her on Saturday?”
“Tense. Excitable. Hostile.” Sam was thoughtful. “But not, I think, in any danger. She was thrown by what happened at Dr. Bennet’s, but quite capable of handling it, as far as it went on that occasion.”
“But you are worried about her being hypnotized again?”
Sam swirled the ice cubes around in his glass. “I am worried, yes, and I spoke to Bennet this morning about it.” He glanced at Nick. “Unfortunately the man was on the defensive. He seemed to think I was trying to interfere and spouted a whole bag of crap about medical ethics at me. However, I shall persevere with him in case Jo goes back to him. Tell me, why are you still so interested? I should have thought Judy took up most of your time these days, and if she doesn’t, she ought to!”
Nick stood up. “I still care for Jo, Sam, and there is something wrong. On Sunday she and I went to Suffolk. She was taken ill-” He stood staring out of the window toward the park as he drained his glass. “There was something very strange about what happened. We were talking during a violent thunderstorm and she had some kind of fit. The local quack said it was exhaustion, but I’m not so sure he was right.” He put his glass down, then held his hands out in front of him, flexing the fingers one by one. “I think it was in some way related to what happened at Bennet’s on Friday.”
Slowly Sam shook his head. “I doubt it. What were you doing in Suffolk anyway?” He was watching Nick carefully.
“Just visiting Jo’s grandmother.”
“I see.” Sam stood up abruptly. “So, you’re still in with the family, are you? Nice, rich, respectable Nick! Does Grandma know you’re living with someone else?”
“I expect so.” Nick stared at him, astonished at his sudden vehemence. “Jo tells her most things. Sam, about Jo’s illness-”
“I’ll go over and see her.”
“You can’t. She’s taken the phone off the hook and she’s not answering the door.”
“You tried?”
“Earlier this evening.”
“She wasn’t ill-”
Nick laughed wryly. “Not too ill to tell me to bugger off over the intercom.”
Sam smiled. “In that case I’d stop worrying. The whole thing will have blown over in another few days. She’ll write her article and forget all about it. And I’ll have a word with Bennet to make sure he won’t see her again, just in case she does take it into her head to try. But I’m not taking any of this regression bit too seriously and neither should you. As to the fainting fit, it probably was heat exhaustion. A day’s rest and she will be right as rain.”
Nick did not look particularly convinced as he turned his back on the sunset and held out his glass for a refill. “That’s what she said when I dropped her off on Sunday night.”
“Then she’s a sensible girl. Hold on, I’ll get some more ice.” Sam disappeared toward the kitchen.
With a sigh Nick walked over to the coffee table and picked up the top book on the pile there. It was a biography of King John, borrowed from the London Library. Surprised, he flipped it open at the place at the back, marked by an envelope. There, in the voluminous index, underlined in red pencil, was the name Briouse, Matilda of.
He put the book down and glanced curiously at the others. A two-volume history of Wales, the everyman edition of Gerald of Wales’s
