Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time. Barbara Erskine

start. She approached the shelf, her hand outstretched. Her fingers were trembling.

      ‘Braos?’ she murmured to herself. ‘Breos? I wonder how they spelled it?’ There was a rustle of paper beside her as a large bespectacled priest turned to the racing page. He looked up and caught her eye. His wink was comforting.

      She walked slowly along the shelf, squinting at the gold-lettered spines of the books, then she heaved out a volume and carried it to a table, perching uncomfortably on the very edge of the chair as she began to leaf through the pages.

      Don’t let it have been real … Please don’t let it have been real … I can’t cope with that … She shook her head angrily. The thick paper crackled a little, the small print blurring. A slightly musty smell floated from between the covers as the riffling pages stirred the hot air of the room.

      … Bowen … Bradford … Branston … Braose, Philip de (fl. 1172), two inches of print, then Braose, William de (d. 1211). There were more than two pages.

      She sat still for a moment fighting her stomach. She could taste the bile in the back of her throat. Her forehead was damp and ice-cold and her hands were burning hot. It was a while before she became conscious that the priest was watching her closely and she realised suddenly that she had been staring at him hard, oblivious of everything but the need not to be sick. Somehow she forced herself to smile at him and she looked away.

      All it meant was that she must have read about them somewhere; she had a good memory, an eye for detail. She was a reporter after all. And that was what she was here for now, her job made easier because the characters she was searching for were obviously at least moderately well known. She took a deep breath and stared down at the page. Was Matilda there, in the article, which she could see at a glance was full of place names and dates? Had she lived long enough to make her mark on history and have her name recorded with her cruel overbearing husband? Or had she flitted in and out of life like a shadow, leaving no trace at all, if she had ever existed?

      The priest was still watching her, his kind face creased with concern. Jo knew that any minute he was going to stand up and come over to her. She looked away again hastily. She had to look up Richard de Clare, too, and Abergavenny and make notes on them all. Then, perhaps, she would go and have a cup of coffee and accept the consolations of the Church if they were offered.

      It was several minutes before the intercom on the doorstep below Jo’s flat crackled into life. Sam bent towards the display board.

      ‘Nick? It’s Sam. Let me come up.’

      Nick was waiting on the landing as Sam walked slowly up the carpeted stairs. ‘You’re too late,’ he said brusquely. ‘She went to a hypnotist yesterday and let him regress her.’

      Sam followed him into the brightness of the flat and stared round. ‘What happened? Where is she?’ He faced his brother coldly, taking in the dark rings beneath Nick’s eyes, and the unshaven stubble.

      ‘She had gone before I woke up.’ Nick ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I think she was OK. She was last night. Just shocked and rather frightened. She had a long session which seemed to get out of control. The hypnotist couldn’t bring her back to consciousness. She seemed to get so involved in what was happening, it was so real to her.’

      ‘You were with her?’ Sam turned on him sharply.

      ‘Of course not! Do you think I’d have let her go! No, she brought back a tape of what happened and I heard it last night.’ Nick shook his head wearily. ‘She was in a terrible state – but not in danger as far as I could tell. She never stopped breathing or anything. I stayed the night with her and she spent most of it tossing and turning and pacing up and down the floor. She must have got up at dawn and gone out. She did say she’d go to the library first thing. Maybe she went there to see if she could find any of these people in a history book.’

      Sam took off his jacket and threw it on the back of the sofa. Then he sat down and drew the tape recorder towards him. ‘Right, Nick. May I suggest you return to your titian-haired artist friend and try to apologise for last night’s ruined meal? Leave Jo to me.’

      ‘Like hell I will!’ Nick glared at him.

      ‘I mean it. Go back to Miss Curzon, Nick. She is your new love, is she not? I went there straight from the airport under the impression that you would be there. She is not pleased with you, little brother. If you value your relationship with her I should go and make amends as fast as you can. Meanwhile I shall listen to the tape and talk to Jo when she returns. I shan’t want you here.’

      Nick took a deep breath. ‘Jo asked me to stay.’

      ‘And I am asking you to go.’ Sam turned his back on Nick, his shoulders hunched as he searched for the ‘play’ button on the machine. ‘She is my patient, Nick.’

      Nick hesitated. ‘You’ll ring me after you’ve spoken to her?’

      ‘I’ll ring you. Better still, do you still have your flat in Mayfair?’

      ‘You know I do.’

      ‘Give me the key then. I’ll stay there for a night or two. And I’ll see you there some time no doubt.’ He switched on the tape and sat back on the sofa thoughtfully as Jo’s voice filled the room.

      It was four hours before Jo came home. She stopped dead in the doorway, her keys still in her hand, staring at Sam. He had long ago finished playing the tape and was lying on the sofa, his eyes closed, listening to the soft strains of the ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’.

      ‘How did you get in?’ He did not immediately open his eyes.

      Jo sighed. She dropped her shoulder bag on the floor and banged the door behind her.

      ‘Where’s Nick?’

      Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘He felt he should return to make his peace with Judy. I’m sorry.’

      ‘I see.’ Jo’s voice dropped. ‘And he’s left you here to pick up the pieces. I suppose I should be grateful he stayed at all last night. I hope he told you I don’t need you, Sam. Nothing awful happened. I’m perfectly all right. I did not become incurably insane, nor did I kill anyone as far as I know.’ She unbuttoned her jacket wearily. ‘When did he leave?’

      ‘Soon after I arrived. He was worried about you Jo.’ Sam was watching her closely. ‘Nick’s a nice bloke. Even if it is all over between you both he wouldn’t have left you alone, you know that.’

      Jo dropped her jacket on a chair and reached for the Scotch bottle on the table by the phone. ‘That’s right. Good old St Nicholas who never leaves a friend in the lurch. Want one?’

      Sam shook his head. He watched as she poured; she did not dilute it.

      ‘Have you heard it?’ Her eyes had gone past him to the cassette lying on the coffee table.

      ‘Twice.’ Her face was pale and drawn he noted, her hair tied back into an uncompromising pony-tail which showed new sharp angles to her cheekbones and shadows beneath her eyes.

      ‘It all happened, Sam.’ She raised the glass to her lips. ‘I found it so easily. William de Braose, his wife – most books seem to call her Maude – I didn’t even know it was the same name as Matilda – their children, the massacre of Abergavenny. It was all there for anyone to read. Not obscure at all.’ She swallowed a mouthful of whisky. ‘I must have read about it somewhere before, but I swear to God I don’t remember it. I’ve never studied Welsh history, but all that detail in my mind! It doesn’t seem possible. Christ, Sam! Where did it all come from?’

      Sam had not taken his eyes from her face. ‘Where do you think it came from?’ She shrugged, flinging herself down on the sofa beside him, turning the glass round and round in her fingers.

      Sam eyed the length of lightly tanned thigh exposed where her skirt caught on the edge of the cushions. He moved away from her slightly. ‘Where would you like it to have come from?’

      Jo frowned. ‘That’s