There is a book in this, Jo. You can base it on our series.” She scooped the strap of her tote bag onto her shoulder. Then she paused. “Listen, why not see if Tim Heacham will meet you down in Wales?” She dropped the bag and turned the phone on her desk to face her. “I’ll call him now.”
“I haven’t agreed yet, Bet.” Jo stood up.
“Yes you have.” Bet grinned as she dialed. “You wouldn’t have come to see me this morning if you’d really wanted to stop. You would have gone straight to your hypnotist. Here”-she held out the phone-“the number is ringing.”
Bet met Pete Leveson for lunch at Langan’s the following Monday. They sat downstairs, both greeting other diners for a few moments before they turned to one another. Pete grinned. “Perrier with a slice of lemon at this time of day, right?”
Bet raised an eyebrow. “That will do for starters.” She sat back in her chair and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m prepared to bet you know why I asked you to meet me here.”
“Hands off Jo Clifford?” Pete leaned back and crossed one long leg over the other. He stared up at the ceiling. “Do you intend to make it worth my while?”
“You mean you want me to trade stories?” Bet glanced at him quizzically.
“Possibly.
Bet laughed out loud. “Touche. Supposing I promise to keep my ear to the ground?” She took up the menu and began to look at it thoughtfully. “There is one favor you might do for me, though, Pete,” she said, not taking her eyes from the list of hors d’oeuvres. “Spend a little time with
“You mean Jo will be grateful if Judy has less time for Nick.”
Bet concealed a smile. “No, that’s not what I meant,” she said. She raised a languid hand to greet a colleague who had appeared in the doorway.
Peter gave her a sharp look. Then he grinned. “I see-and while the cat’s away…She’s gone to Wales, you said?”
Bet nodded. “Tim has gone with her. He’s going to photograph the locations-ruins and mountains and things, and also try and catch Jo while she’s in a trance. You’d be amazed how quickly he agreed to go. He dropped everything-left his entire diary to that dishy George chappie and whatever his other assistant is called, packed his knapsack and went.”
Pete gave a silent whistle. “So that’s the way the wind blows. Does Nick know what is happening?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Nick Franklyn is Jo’s worst enemy in some ways. He distracts her from her work. He turns her neurotic when I want her incisive and militant. He blunts that acerbic edge that makes Jo Jo.”
“Besides which, you’ve fancied him yourself for years.”
Bet gave an enigmatic smile. “Have you tried the nest of quails’ eggs they do here?” she said innocently. “If not, I’d recommend it.”
There was a knock on Jo’s bedroom door. She stood back from her suitcase and stared for a moment out of the dormer window toward the trees that screened the River Wye from her view. “Come in, Tim. I’m just about ready.” Tim appeared, stooping beneath the low sloping ceiling. “You were right about Mrs. Griffiths,” he said in an undertone. “What a gem. I’m glad she had rooms for us.” He wore an open-necked checked shirt and jeans. There was a camera case slung from his shoulder. “Shall we walk up into Hay?”
Jo nodded. She slipped her notebook into her tote bag and followed Tim down the creaking staircase and out onto the sun-baked pavement.
They walked slowly up the road past the church, stopping to stare at the grass-covered tump where once the first castle of Hay had stood, then they made their way toward the bridge that spanned the river. Leaning on the blue-painted railings, they stared down into the water far below.
“You say it happened here the first time?” Tim asked.
Jo nodded. “I was sitting on the shingle down there.”
“And it happened completely spontaneously?”
“I think I knew something was wrong. Things went strange-a bit jerky, as if I were starting a migraine. Then, quite suddenly, I was somewhere else.”
“You want to try again?”
Jo swallowed. “Of course. That’s what we’ve come for. Actually”-she gave Tim a wry smile-“I’d rather have someone there. I think I’ll feel safer somehow. Waking up and finding those people bending over me…I felt as if they had seen me naked.”
Tim nodded soberly. “I do understand. Come on.” He was about to turn away from the rail when he stiffened and leaned farther over, looking down into the bright glitter of the water. “Look. By those streamers of weed.”
Jo felt a shiver touch her shoulders. She clutched the rail, peering down, half expecting to see some shadow from the long-ago past.
“There. See it?” Tim leaned over in excitement. “A huge fish.”
Jo relaxed. She smiled at him in relief. “This is a famous fishing river. You should have brought your rods, if you fish.”
“No way.” Tim followed her toward the far side of the bridge. “I’d hate to kill anything for fun, that’s a sport for the gods. Besides, I shoot as much as I want with my camera.”
She turned in at the swinging gate that led off the road and onto the footpath. “That sounds very philosophical.”
“Perhaps.” He was grinning as he followed her down the footpath through the trees and onto the shingle strip along the river. Slowly Jo led the way to the spot where she had sat before, picking her way over the smooth rocks that lined the bank of the river. She stopped at last on the edge of the shingle once again.
“It was here,” she said.
Tim was watching her. “You don’t have to try to do it now, Jo. We can wait.”
“No. I want to.”
She put her bag down and sat nervously on one of the boulders. She swallowed, staring at the water, not blinking, allowing her eyes to be dazzled, deliberately trying to make her mind a blank.
Beside her Tim squatted silently, his eyes on her face. He was completely relaxed, his long limbs folded with the motionless ease of someone accustomed to the role of watcher. Jo, in contrast, was rigid with tension. He saw her swallow again. She was frowning. “It isn’t going to happen,” she said at last.
“You’re trying too hard,” Tim said easily. “Try to relax.”
“I can’t.” She tore her eyes away from the water to look at him. “I suppose, deep down, I don’t want it to happen. I’m afraid. Last time, sitting here, I was completely relaxed. It was the last thing I expected. Besides, I think I was so exhausted that my mind went a complete blank and that is when it happened.”
“Were you afraid with Dr. Bennet?” Tim smiled easily.
She nodded. “I was afraid but I couldn’t fight his hypnosis. He knew how to approach it obliquely to put me at my ease.”
“You were telling me you read a book on self-hypnosis. What did that tell you to do?”
She grinned wryly. “It was incredibly complicated. To do with separating the two halves of the brain. You have to keep one half distracted while the other half is stimulated. I didn’t read the instructions too carefully at the time, I must confess. It sounded awfully like hard work.”
Tim laughed. “You should have brought it with you. I could have read out the instructions as we went along. I find it hard enough to cope with my brain even when I think it’s working in unison.” He stretched his arms above his head lazily. “Tell me the point Matilda’s story has reached now.”
“Well, here it was rather exciting.” Jo smiled. “She met Richard again. They flew their falcons on the moors
