Not much left of her. Old bones in a frayed cardigan. Hair as dry and neglected as tufts of last summer's sheep wool caught in a wire fence.
Some witch, he thought, rising up behind her.
Quite slowly - although he knew he'd made no sound - she turned around and looked up at him, at his fingers poised above her bony, brittle shoulders. Then at his face.
And he looked at hers.
They'd always said, in the village, how fierce her eyes were. How she could freeze you where you stood with those eyes, turn you to stone, pin you to the wall.
Shaw Horridge grinned. Come on, then.
Wanting her to do that to him. Focus her eyes like lasers. Wanting the challenge, the friction. Wanting something he could smash, like hurling someone else's Saab Turbo into a bus
shelter.
Wanted to do it and feel better.
But her eyes surprised him. They were as soft and harmless as a puppy's.
For a moment, this froze him.
'Come on,' he said, suddenly agitated. 'Come on, witch.'
She stared calmly at him, heels on the very edge of the top stair. Wouldn't take much of a push. That was no good.
He said, 'Where's your magic, eh? Where's your fucking magic now?'
She bit her worn-down bottom lip, but otherwise didn't move. 'Don't you know me?' she said. 'Do you not know me?'
He shook his head. 'You're going to die,' he said. 'Don't you realise that?'
The withered old face crumpled into an apology for a smile. 'I'm dead already, lad,' Ma Wagstaff said, voice trickling away like sand through an egg-timer. 'Dead already. But it's nowt t'do wi' you. You'll be glad of that, one day.'
Her ancient face was as blank as unmarked parchment as she threw up her arms, hands wafting at the air. Her body seemed to rise up at him, making him lurch back into the landing wall, and then she flopped down the stairs, with barely a bounce, like an old, discarded mop.
CHAPTER V
The gypsy guy with the beat-up hat and the Dobermans wasn't too sure about this. Still looked like he'd prefer to feed the stranger to the dogs.
'No,' Macbeth said, 'I don't even know her name.' Had to be easier getting to meet with the goddamn Queen. 'All I know is she isn't called Mrs Cairns.'
The guy's heavy eyebrows came down, suspicious. 'Who is it told you where to come?'
'Uh, Moira's agent. In Glasgow. Listen. I'm not with the police, I'm not a reporter.'
'OK, well, you just stay here, pal,' the gypsy guy said, and to make sure Macbeth didn't move from the gates of the caravan site he left the two dogs behind. Macbeth liked to think he was good with dogs, but the Dobermans declined to acknowledge this; when he put out a friendly hand, one growled and the other dribbled. Macbeth shrugged and waited.
The gypsy was gone several minutes, but when he returned he'd gotten himself a whole new attitude. Unbolting the gates, holding them back for the visitor. 'Wid ye come this way, sir ...' Well, shit, next thing he'd be holding his hat to his chest and bowing. Even the Dobermans had a deferential air. Macbeth grinned, figured maybe the old lady had sussed him psychically, checked out his emanations.
Whatever, in no time at all, here's Mungo Macbeth of the Manhattan Macbeths sitting in a caravan like some over-decorated seaside theme-bar, brass and china all over the walls.
'I'll leave ye then, Duchess ... ?'
'Thank you, Donald.' Lifting a slender hand loaded up with gold bullion.
She was Cleopatra, aboard this huge, gold-braided Victorian-looking chaise longue. She had on an ankle-length robe, edged with silver. Had startling hair, as long as Moira's, only dazzling white.
'Well, uh ...' This was bizarre. This was an essentially tricky situation. Awe was not called for. And yet this place was already answering questions about Moira that he hadn't even been able to frame.
She said, 'Call me Duchess. It's a trifle cheap, but one gets used to these indignities.'
Didn't look to be more than sixty. Younger by several centuries, he thought, than her eyes.
'And you'll come to the point, Mr Macbeth. Life is short.' He blinked. 'OK.' Swallowed. Couldn't believe he'd come here, was doing this. 'Uh ... fact of the matter is ... I spent some time with your daughter, couple nights ago.'
'Really,' the Duchess said dryly.
'No, hey, nothing like ... See, I ...' This was his first meeting with Moira all over again. Couldn't string the words together. 'Can't get her off of my mind,' he said and couldn't say any more.
'You poor man.' The merest shade of a smile in the crease down one check. 'How can I help?'
Acutely aware how embarrassingly novelettish all this was sounding, how like some plastic character in one of his own crummy TV films, he said solemnly, 'See, this never happened to me before.'
The Duchess had a very long neck. Very slowly she bent it towards him, like a curious swan. 'Are you a wealthy man, Mr Macbeth?'
'One day, maybe,' he said. 'So they tell me.' Thinking, if she asks me to cross her fucking palm with silver, I'm out of here.
'The feeling I'm getting from you ...' Those ancient, ancient eyes connecting with his, '... is that, despite your name, you've always been very much an American.'
'That's that the truth,' Macbeth confirmed with a sigh. 'All we've got to do now is convince my mom.'
The Duchess smiled at last. 'I think I like you, Mr Macbeth,' she said. 'We'll have some tea.'
Later she picked up on the theme. 'You're really not what you appear, are you?'
'No?'
The Duchess shook her head. Tiny gold balls revolved in her earrings.
'This worries you. You feel you've been living a lie. You feel that all your life you've tried to be what people expect you to be. But different people want different things, and you feel obliged, perhaps, to live up to their expectation of you. You feel ...' The Duchess scrutinized him, with renewed interest, over her gold-rimmed bone china teacup. 'You feel you are in your present fortunate position because of who you are rather than what you can do.'
Macbeth said nothing. He hadn't come here for this. Had he?
'Sorry to be so blunt,' the Duchess said.
'No problem,' Macbeth said hollowly.
'This is your job perhaps. People think you can open doors?'
'Do they just,' said Macbeth.
'Now you've woken up, and you're thinking, am I to spend my life ... serving up the, er, goods ... ? As a form of restitution? Paying back, even though I might be paying back to people who never gave me anything, or do I go out on my own, chance my arm ... ?'
There were subtle alterations in her voice. Macbeth felt goose-bumps forming.
The Duchess said, 'is there something more out there than piling up money? Even if that money's not all for me, even if it's helping the economy and therefore other people who might need the money more than me? Are there ... more things in heaven and earth than you get to read about in the New York Times?'