Hypnotized

I refused to be baited. I smiled coldly. I knew his type. He was an unpleasant, selfish, spoilt brat, and I didn’t like him, so it was weird that it was he who should then give me the biggest clue of all to solving the mystery that was Olivia.

‘Do you think she’s making it all up?’ he asked.

‘Why would you think that?’

‘Well, it’s a bit careless to lose one’s memory twice in one’s lifetime, wouldn’t you say?’

I frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Didn’t anybody tell you?’ he sneered triumphantly. ‘The first time my sister lost her memory was when she was five years old.’

Alarm was crawling in my belly. ‘Under what circumstances?’

‘She fell down the stairs, hit her head, and completely trashed five years worth of memories. Had to start from scratch. Of course, I know only the barest facts. I was only three.’ He delivered his speech with an aloof, deadpan expression, his mouth hardly moving, keeping his upper lip very stiff.

I stared at him, shocked. Why had no one told me?

‘Are you familiar with the effects of closed head injuries??

? he asked cordially, as if he was asking if I had read the weather report for tomorrow.

I nodded curtly. Depression, personality changes and psychiatric issues.

14

Marlow

More rattled than I wanted to admit, I glanced away from him and saw Olivia and Beryl returning.

‘We’ll be having dinner in a minute,’ Olivia said. ‘And Ivana was wondering if you’d like to take Lady Calthrope in.’ I followed her glance to a tight-lipped, bone-thin woman in her mid-sixties seated on one of the sofas.

‘Of course,’ I said, just as dinner was announced.

I walked over to Lady Calthrope and she looked up at me with pale, hooded eyes. ‘Are you taking me in?’ she demanded.

‘Unless you don’t want me to,’ I said.

She raised a thin, blue-veined hand imperiously. I grasped it and helped her up. She stood for a moment staring boldly at me. ‘So you’re the American hypnotist.’

‘Yes.’

She linked her hand through my arm and without the least trace of embarrassment said, ‘That’s good. I was rather afraid you might be one of those ghastly Americans.’

There was nothing to say to that so arm in arm we followed the tasteful procession in to dinner. The State Dining Room was everything a State Room should be: blended strawberries wallpaper, seventeenth-century ceiling murals, a dining table that spanned from one end of the room to the other, massive chandeliers, heavy gilt mirrors, museum-size paintings, and a stunningly carved marble fireplace. We took our seats amid the flowers and candelabras.

I looked for the waiter and nodded at him. He returned speedily with my American measure of whiskey.

I had Lady Calthrope on my left, which, according to etiquette, meant that I was to talk to her until the first course was cleared away. There was no sharing platitudes with her—it was more like bouts of blunt trauma with an eccentric twist. Between rounds I glanced at Beryl and she smiled or raised her eyebrows at me from across the table, but I quickly realized that she was sitting next to a man who had decided that no conversation at all was possible with her. After a few failed attempts to engage him, poor Beryl was spooning her buttery leek and Stilton soup in stony silence.

Although I was intensely aware of Olivia sitting three guests away on my left, I never let my gaze travel to her. When the places were cleared, as custom required, I turned to converse with the guest on my right.

The Baroness Wentworth was a straight-backed woman with sharp blue eyes and pale lipstick. She smiled mildly at me. ‘So, you’re a hypnotist.’

‘Yes,’ I said politely, and catching the waiter’s eyes, nodded.

She glanced sideways at me. ‘Is it dangerous to look you in the eye?’

‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ I said gravely.