The Sin Eater(41)
Nell did not mind coming back to the court when it was dark and quiet. She liked Quire Court very much. There was a small printing business whose origins went back to the 1700s and from which the courtyard took its name; a second-hand bookshop which was probably inevitable, a silversmith, and a florist. They all coexisted very amiably, and Nell and the silversmith were hoping to have a joint exhibition of their best pieces next summer. The printer would supply posters at cost price and the florist would help with decorations.
She paused before going into her own shop, liking the mellow stonework and the mullioned windows, and the way the lights from Turl Street painted harlequin patterns everywhere. Michael had once said if only you knew the right way to look at the shadows of Quire Court, you might catch a glimpse of the people who had lived and worked there – like seeing coloured cellophane cut-outs, he said. Nell smiled, remembering this. Dear Michael. He was one of the very best things that had happened to her since Brad’s death.
Tonight, she had the feeling that Michael’s cellophane ghosts might be near, and with the thought, faint sounds reached her. She looked around, puzzled, because the courtyard was deserted. The sounds came again, this time closer, as if something was walking across the stones – something so light and so insubstantial its footsteps were as fragile as spun glass . . .
Or as fragile as the footsteps of creatures who tread with a boneless print and leave no footprints . . .
The words were so distinct that for a moment Nell thought they had been said aloud. But there was no one here. She looked about her. Behind her was the reassuring buzz of traffic and the calls of people setting off for their evening and groups of students heading for the pubs and bars. Ahead of her, in Quire Court, was an older Oxford, and for the first time that older Oxford did not feel reassuring. She shivered, and unlocked the shop.
Once inside, the familiar, reassuring scents of old wood and beeswax closed round her. It’s all right, she thought, locking the door. It was probably nothing more sinister than a pair of teenagers using a dark corner of the courtyard for a spot of furtive sex. At the very worst it would have been a couple of burglars plotting a break-in. Nell reminded herself that all the shops, including her own, had efficient and extremely loud alarm systems, and went through to the back room which she used as an office. She would see if there was an email from Beth, then she would photograph the chess piece in order to mail the details to one or two of her contacts.
Beth had sent a happy email, full of all the things she and Ellie Harper had been doing. Nell read it with enjoyment. Liz, Ellie’s mother, had emailed as well, saying the girls were having a great time and they were loving having Beth to stay. She also sent a photo of Beth and Ellie in the garden of the Harpers’ Maryland home. Beth was wearing a crazy sun hat which Liz must have given her, and she was laughing and squinting slightly against the sun. Her father used to narrow his eyes in exactly the same way. Nell touched the screen with the tip of her finger, as if by doing so she could touch Beth and through her reach Brad, then frowned and dashed off a bright email to Beth and another to Liz Harper.
She crossed to the safe, which stood in a rather dark corner, and unlocked it, swinging back the thick door, then reaching inside, feeling for the chess piece. There was a moment of apprehension because the figure, which she had wrapped in soft cotton waste, did not seem to be there. It must be, though; she remembered locking it away. She was just telling herself there was no need to panic, when, from within the darkness of the safe, a hand – small, dry, scaly – closed around hers.
Nell cried out and shot away from the safe, nursing her hand as if she had scalded it, her eyes on the safe. Terror engulfed her in sickening waves. Something had got in there. An animal – maybe a rat. But rats did not clasp your hand in that dreadful human way; rats did not have small rough fingers with nails at the tips that dug into your skin . . .
The safe door was still half open, and she had to break out of this frozen terror and slam it hard, turning the lock before whatever was in there could get out. Then she would get help. But from who? Police? RSPCA? Nell had a wild image of herself saying, ‘Something’s hiding in my safe and it’s just clutched my hand.’
Whatever was in there was not moving. Dare she switch on the overhead light? No, that might alarm whatever it was. She went nearer, moving slowly, and with a shaking hand, grasped the edge of the door. In doing so, she stepped to one side of the desk lamp, and its light fell across the safe. The only things in there were the wrapped chess figure, exactly as she had left it, a small box containing some Victorian jewellery she had recently bought, and the digital camera, which she usually left there for safety. There was nothing else – absolutely nothing. There was no way a hand could have reached out and taken hers. Except that it had.
She looked round the office. Had it darted out of the safe, and was now skulking in a corner? But she had not taken her eyes from the safe, she knew that.
Her hand felt odd, as if it had been slightly burned, and she held it under the lamp, expecting to see some indication of what had happened – indentations, even, from that dreadfully small hand that might have been a baby’s, except that a baby’s hand would not feel dry and shrivelled. But her own hand was unmarked. Had she imagined it? Could it have been some kind of nerve spasm? There was something called neuropathy – an elderly aunt of Brad’s had had it and Nell thought it gave you quite unpleasant crawling sensations over your skin.