Property of a Lady(30)
The other thing was that, as Brad would have said, she was suddenly extraordinarily hungry. So she smiled and said, ‘D’you know, that’s a very welcome suggestion.’
The Black Boar’s dining room was small and had the air of being an extension of the bar with a few knives and forks dropped casually on a couple of the tables. Even so, it felt odd to be facing a man across a dining table after so long.
Michael ordered the food, then took from his pocket a folded A4 sheet. ‘This is what sent me to that church,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘It’s a printout from an article in one of the local newspapers.’
Nell looked at the headline. ‘“Missing girl found in churchyard”. She glanced at the date then read the article through, frowning slightly. ‘How on earth did you know about this?’ she said, looking up at him.
‘You mentioned it to me on the phone.’
‘Did I? Oh yes, so I did.’
‘And you told the inspector as well,’ said Michael.
‘I do remember that,’ said Nell. ‘He managed to get the case notes, but he said they were very brief. That there was nothing to link it to Beth’s disappearance.’
‘There wasn’t. I saw the file. But I had something else to go on,’ said Michael. ‘Two things, in fact.’
‘What?’ For the first time she felt a faint suspicion.
‘The first is that when I was at Charect House a few weeks ago I saw – or thought I saw – a man who fits Beth’s nightmare.’
‘A real prowler after all?’ Nell felt a bump of fear. ‘Not just a nightmare or amnesia?’ But I don’t want him to be real, she thought. I don’t want Beth to have been threatened by someone who might still be around, still watching her. The man with holes where his eyes should be, the man who sings that macabre rhyme . . .
‘I’m not sure if he was a prowler at all,’ said Michael. ‘I’m not really sure what he was.’ He paused as their food was brought and set down. ‘I told you there were two things,’ he said, after the waitress had gone. ‘And it’s the other thing that’s worrying me.’ He frowned, as if searching for the right words, then said, ‘My god-daughter, Ellie, has been having nightmares that sound identical to Beth’s.’
‘The man with holes where his eyes should be.’ It felt even worse to say the words aloud than it had to have them inside her mind. Nell wanted to gather Beth up and move as far away as possible from Marston Lacy and forget all this had ever happened. But if another child was having the same terrors as Beth . . . ‘That’s really disturbing,’ she said, after a moment.
‘Yes, but what if it’s just a fairly common manifestation of a child’s secret fears?’ said Michael. ‘I have no way of knowing that. It would need a psychiatrist specializing in the problems of children.’ He made an impatient gesture with one hand. ‘But I don’t know very much about children.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder if I do. Children can have quite severe nightmares, though. Tell me about Ellie’s. There might be all kinds of differences.’
‘There is one difference,’ said Michael. ‘Ellie has another character in the nightmare. She says the man is trying to find someone.’
Nell stopped with a forkful of lasagne halfway to her mouth. ‘Elvira,’ she said. ‘Is it Elvira he’s trying to find?’
‘Yes. How on earth did you know that?’
‘Because earlier this evening, Beth said she hadn’t been as frightened of the man as she might have been, because she wasn’t the one he wanted. He wanted Elvira.’ The lasagne, which was beautifully cooked and served with crisp warm Italian bread, and which Nell had been enjoying, suddenly tasted of nothing.
At last Michael said, ‘Does Beth know anyone called Elvira?’
‘No. Nor do I. I’ll bet you’d have to go a long way to find anyone called Elvira these days. Michael, what is all this?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I think we need to find out who – or what Elvira is. The first thing to do, is for me to ask Jack a bit more about Ellie’s dreams.’
‘Don’t alarm them unnecessarily,’ said Nell. She liked the sound of Liz Harper and her family, and it would be terrible to put needless fears in their minds.
‘I won’t,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll email them as soon as I get back to Oxford.’ Then, as the waitress hovered, ‘Would you like anything else to eat? No? A cup of coffee?’
Nell shook her head. When the waitress had gone, she said, ‘I was thinking you could email from the flat if you like. You’re welcome to use my computer – I’ve got Liz Harper’s email address on it.’
‘It’s a bit late to do that now,’ he said slowly.
‘It needn’t take long. And if you send something tonight there might be a reply as soon as tomorrow.’
‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘But I’ll use my own laptop – I brought it with me thinking I might do some work and thinking the Black Boar would have Internet connection, but it doesn’t, at least not for customers. There might be an email from Jack to pick up, as well. Wait here, will you, and I’ll get it from my room.’
If it had felt odd to dine with a man again, it felt even odder to be unlocking her own door and going up to the sitting room with him. There was a moment when Nell wondered if she was being stupid, inviting this near-stranger into her home late at night. But it was not so very late – barely ten o’clock – and in a way this was a semi-business arrangement. The trouble was that she was out of practice at dealing with a situation involving herself and a single man. On the heels of this thought came another one: that Michael Flint was actually quite attractive – the dark hair and eyes, and the diffidence mingled with undoubted intelligence. And the vague impression that in certain situations he might be very far from diffident . . .