Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman

Author:Sally Beauman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

THIS SENSE OF BEING WATCHED WAS ONE I COULD NOT shake off; it clung to me for the rest of the day, and the remainder of my time in London was inconclusive and frustrating. Selina had given me the names of the artists who had told her that ghost story, and the name and telephone number of the managing agents for the Tite Street house. The agents refused to give me any information whatsoever; the artists were not at home. I wasted time knocking on doors in Tite Street, in search of neighbors who might know something of the occupant of Flat 12C, but all were recent arrivals, and knew nothing. I then wasted even more time at Chelsea Town Hall, going through the electoral register. Whoever lived in apartment 12C was unregistered; Selina was listed, but no other occupant.

By the time I’d completed this dispiriting search, eaten a dispiritingly bad sandwich in a small cafe, and fought my way back down a crowded King’s Road to the tube station in Sloane Square, I had only a few hours left in London, and I was more than ready to escape the heat, the traffic, and the exhaust fumes for the clean air and the calm of Kerrith.

I took the tube back into the center of London, and set about more practical tasks. I went to Fortnum and Mason, and bought the Briggs sisters their violet creams, as promised. I went into Hatchards, and bought two books as a present for Colonel Julyan. I saw my own book on Walsingham and his Elizabethan spy network on display; on impulse I bought a copy for Ellie. If I confessed my identity to her and her father, I could give her this; it seemed a reasonable idea at first, but, the instant the purchase was made, I regretted it. This was a book aimed primarily at scholars; it was interesting to me, but it was peppered with footnotes, it was dry and specialized. Was that how I wanted to introduce Tom Galbraith to her? She would find him very dull—but maybe she found him so already.

I had one last task before I could return to Regent’s Park, pack my bag, and make my escape. I had to see Jack Favell, return Rebecca’s ring and—if he was in a fit state—question him. I walked back up Bond Street, and through into Mayfair. The streets were crowded now; the warmth of the weather created a gaiety, a spring fever, that was palpable. A man and a woman strolled past, hand in hand; a uniformed nanny pushed a pram, and two girls stopped to peer under its sunshade and smile at the baby. I paused at the corner. I could sense that promise peculiar to cities in spring, its possibilities were in the air, in the glitter of the pavement, in the song of the traffic. Its allure was all around me. I felt very alone, marked out by my isolation, locked in my searches of

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