Well, that sounded good.
Then the corners of her mouth turned down. ‘But these …’ She touched four cards, all of which showed people holding swords. ‘Three of these are bad. The Ten is what it looks like. This is peril of death, and I mean actual physical death.’
I stared at the prone figure. Ten swords protruded from his body. That looked about as unequivocal as anything I’d ever seen.
Meroe gave a slight cough and resumed. ‘The Page down here? I’m not sure. It may be you. But having swords above and below means there’s no way around this. You have to face what is coming. And what you will face is this here …’ She touched a card with a blindfolded woman holding two swords. ‘The Two reversed is unnatural passion. Are you in trouble with criminals?’
‘We’ve been broken into a lot, as you may have heard.’
Meroe leant forward, ran her hands down her front and frowned. ‘Yes, but there’s something worse here than just a break-in. It’s hidden, for the moment. The good news is this one: the Seven.’
I stared at it. Next to a fairground pavilion, a stealthy character had picked up a bundle of swords and appeared to be making off with them.
‘Someone is going to help you, unexpectedly. But covertly.’
‘I should expect surreptitiousness?’
‘Indeed you should.’
I liked the fact that the last card showed what looked like the Holy Grail. She nodded. ‘The ruling card here is the Three of Cups. This means you need to keep your emotional balance. The Ace down here reinforces that.’
She smiled again, closed her eyes and was silent for a long time. I looked at my watch. Three-thirty-eight! My afternoon nap was slipping away.
Suddenly she stared straight at me, her deep brown eyes narrowed. ‘Corinna, you’re going on a journey soon. For some reason I see a dog. Make sure you carry some doggie treats. And … do you have an amber bracelet?’
‘Yes, I have one. Should I wear that too?’
‘Yes, you should.’ She gripped the arms of her chair and muttered, ‘Do you know, these four cards here usually represent occurrences in the distant future. But there’s such an air of haste about all this that I don’t think so. Are you going out tonight?’
‘Yes, I’m going on the Soup Run. Is the danger there? I can always put it off.’
She shook her head. ‘Yes, that should be all right. Be bold, but careful. And do not go alone.’
‘I won’t. Anything else?’
She rose, and took my hand. ‘No. If you don’t seek it, it will come for you anyway. Be prepared.’
And so, with the Boy Scouts’ motto still ringing in my ears, I returned to my apartment and went to bed.
Philomela: I smell vengeance brewing. It has the sweetest of scents. I managed to play Jenny Plucks Pears on the recorder today. I still can’t speak, but I can play. My fingers remember!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door;
but ’tis enough, ’twill serve.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT 3, SCENE 1
Sleep is indeed a wondrous thing. I woke again in the late afternoon to find Horatio stretched out next to me on the bed. His eyes opened briefly and closed again. He stretched out his front paws, spreading out his vestigial fingers in an ecstasy of sybaritic comfort. I did the same. Life had been running far too fast for me to catch up, but my mutual catnap with Mr Horatio had been just what I needed.
As I prepared myself a light Caesar salad I reviewed what I had learnt. Our multiple mysteries were certainly beginning to crystallise. And while Meroe’s tarot reading had scared me, I was oddly comforted by her insistence that this crisis could not be dodged. As I already knew, the forces of the ungodly would come to me whether I wanted it or not. It was all very well for Wonder Woman to barge into the midst of foes and make everything right. This is the prerogative of goddesses, not humans. Sensible people don’t go looking for trouble. But if trouble were coming anyway, stepping out forewarned and forearmed to meet it didn’t seem so bad.
I was now convinced I knew where Geordie was. And we were going to rescue him. Why had the Kilmarnock crime gang taken him? I didn’t know that. And I didn’t much care. He had to be there. Because if he wasn’t, then he must surely be dead and I wasn’t prepared to countenance that. I was also convinced that our three break-ins were committed by two people. Jordan we knew about. But my ninja and the Professor’s Second Burglar had to be the same people. And they probably were the dognappers as well. Once I had reluctantly accepted Jordan King as a coincidence, the rest seemed to be connected. Was this reason, or intuition? A mixture of both. But there was nothing especially sinister about Jordan. He was a farcical footnote to a series of menacing crime scenes. The rest seemed to be all of a piece.
I sprinkled some munchies into Horatio’s dinner dish in case he felt peckish, and set one of my best metal bowls on the kitchen table. I laid out a circular wheel of cos lettuce in the bottom, sliced two hard-boiled eggs, sprinkled some leftover cooked bacon, added a few croutons, a liberal serving of mayonnaise and some ground salt and black pepper. And anchovies! I swear by them. Alas, some can only swear at them, it seems. Professor Monk says he loves the idea of furry fish, but the actuality is too much: a bit like trying to swallow an aquarium. A half-glass of chilled sauv blanc was duly poured, and I browsed my way through my dinner in contentment. Through a small gap beneath my heavy-duty sunshades golden sunlight peeped nervously. According to my resolutely analogue wall clock, it was a little after seven o’clock when I finished dinner. I washed up, dressed myself in comfortable summer trousers, a loose blouse and sensible flat shoes. My doorbell sounded and I pressed the intercom button. ‘Corinna? We’re early. I hope that’s all right.’
That was Daniel’s chocolate-smooth voice, gloriously welcome as always. I let him in, reflecting that even though he has his own key to my apartment he usually rings anyway. Just to make the point.
I opened my door and ushered them into the sitting room. ‘Drink?’ I offered.
‘A sauv blanc for me,’ Daniel responded. ‘Alasdair?’
The bereft squaddie shook his head. ‘No thanks,’ he murmured.
I waved Daniel towards the bottle and took a close look at Alasdair. He looked weary beyond words, but some colour had returned to his features. His eyes had stopped darting left and right, and he no longer gave the impression of a violin wound too tight for comfort. He looked calmer than I remembered. That would not be difficult. He was comfortably dressed in black jeans with holes in the knees (an old pair of Daniel’s, I noted) and a plain black T-shirt. Only his boots, and the air of hidden menace steaming gently off his stringy, muscular biceps and forearms spoke anything of the military. He looked up at me with something vaguely approaching hope in his pale sapphire eyes. He lifted his shoulders and sighed.
‘Daniel tells me you’ve been seein’ some action,’ he ventured.
I laughed. ‘I think that’s putting it mildly. But yes, I have. And I think we have only one plotline after all. We have a promising lead. And while I don’t know for sure, I think we know where Geordie might be. I think he’s being held captive, and I believe I know where.’