The Widow Ravens Read online

  The Widow Ravens

  F.R. Jameson

  Also by F.R. Jameson

  Ghostly Shadows

  Death at the Seaside

  Certain Danger

  Won’t You Come and Save Me, Oh Soldier

  Call of the Mandrake

  Ghostly Shadows Shorts

  Foliage

  The Strange Fate of Lord Bruton

  Algernon Swafford: Private Investigator

  Sacrifice at St. Nick’s

  Screen Siren Noir

  Diana Christmas

  Eden St. Michel

  Alice Rackham

  Other Short Stories

  Confined Spaces

  F.R. Jameson’s debut novel, The Wannabes is now available completely for free!

  Click here for your copy!

  To V and E, with love, always…

  One

  Emilia Ravens was the most glamourous woman he had ever seen in real life. He found it impossible not to think of her in terms that were ethereal and other-worldly. She was a Sophia Loren, or a Claudia Cardinale, who didn’t just exist made up and sexy on the silver screen, but was living and breathing – in the flesh – right in front of him. An impossible to touch, dream woman. Her sculptured eyebrow arched dismissively, as of course, magnificently beautiful ladies like her were used to cutting down nobody men like him.

  She answered the hotel room door in a thin black slip, a garment which would surely have been deemed a particularly skimpy nightie if they were still back in England. It hung off her naked shoulders on tantalisingly thin straps and stopped high enough up her thighs for him to snatch a glimpse of her stocking tops. He did his best not to stare though; certainly not to salivate. Instead he focused on the black choker she wore around her slender white neck, and the large deep red ruby it held which was pressed against her throat. It was no doubt intrusive the way he stared at it, but the alternative was to openly ogle her figure. Or to marvel at the smooth flawlessness of her face. Given how large the stone was and how intimately close it clung to her skin, it must have made a seriously uncomfortable adornment. And yet, her expression as she swung open the door showed no obvious discomfort whatsoever. Instead she was a woman in complete command of herself and her surroundings.

  Leaning a shoulder casually against the doorframe, she gave him a quick glance up and down. As if that was all she needed to get the full measure of him.

  “Mr Hargreaves?” she asked, her left eyebrow raised.

  “Mrs Ravens, I presume?”

  Her smile maybe became a little tighter as she stepped back to let him into the room. He thought that, perhaps, she was suppressing a sigh.

  “Oh, I haven’t been Mrs Ravens in a very, very long time. I’ve had three more husbands since then. Although Jacob was the only one to actually die on me. He was the only one to leave me rather than vice versa.”

  Feeling somewhat abashed, he crossed the threshold with his shoulders hunched.

  Basic fucking research should have stopped him making such an amateur mistake. Yet the thing was, he had tried. He had worked hard, hour after hour, and got nowhere in finding out more about her life than one got from the basic biography. And now that failure stung again.

  Emilia Ravens appeared in her late husband’s life story as if from nowhere, and disappeared almost immediately at his untimely passing. Hargreaves had tried to fill in the gaps, had probably done more than any other person alive, and yet in his first utterance, he’d managed to give away just how ignorant he still was.

  “Drink?” she asked, shutting the door behind him with a slap. “I’m afraid I only actually have gin. Well, I do have water as well, but it’s from the tap and I personally wouldn’t risk drinking it. It’s entirely up to you. Your prerogative.” A mischievous grin emphasised her sharp, catlike cheekbones.

  Hargreaves hadn’t been prepared for quite how beautiful she would be up close. One could say she was like an angel, but there was something too obviously dark and impish to her for that to be the case. She was like what an angel in Hell might resemble.

  Her hair was thick and jet black and she had wide green eyes which may have seemed a little far apart on another woman, but sat perfectly in her sculptured, feline face. Even though he knew where she was actually from, she seemed Mediterranean. There was nothing of the English rose to her at all.

  How old was she now? He couldn’t hazard a guess. That little dress she was wearing left nothing of her figure to the imagination – her curves still so pert and full. That slip would have put many younger women to shame, and yet here she was looking truly magnificent in it.

  Her actual age though was something else he hadn’t managed to find out. She’d married Jacob Ravens three years before the author died, but that was two decades ago. And she’d already had a husband before him (an Arthur Smethurst; Hargreaves had been successful in some research), so she was hardly a blushing schoolgirl then. The widow Ravens (until he learned her current name, that would just have to do) had to be in her mid-forties at least. But if Hargreaves had had to guess purely based on appearance, he’d have said no more than thirty. And a particularly lovely thirty at that.

  “A gin would be wonderful, thank you.”

  It was so much more pleasant in her hotel room than on the scorching Athens streets outside. The slowly turning ceiling fan seemed to be performing wonders. Or maybe it was that every blind was pulled down, keeping the cool in and the heat out.

  Indicating the two leather chairs nearest the south facing window, she padded to the small mahogany bar which sat next to what must have been the door to the bathroom. (Closed now for discretion’s sake.) There were various bottles lined along the bar, but all of them were empty apart from one. A bottle of Langley’s gin, which was still almost half full.

  Mrs Ravens may not have purchased more drink in anticipation of his arrival, but she had washed up (or had had washed up) a couple of large tumblers. They gleamed, seeming to capture every bit of thin light in the room.

  Moving with effortless grace, she handed him a brimming glass – carrying it over without spilling a single drop. He still stood next to his assigned chair, hadn’t sat down yet, but suddenly being so close to her made him feel even more ridiculous and over-sized than he normally did. It was a horrible contrast to her svelte form and she seemed to purr at his awkwardness. He sipped the drink before his nervous hand spilled the full contents.

  “Shall we?” she asked, her voice trilling with exaggerated politeness.

  He let her take her seat, crossing lithe legs that he did his best not to stare at. Carefully he lowered his glass to the lush carpet. She stared up at him as he clumsily slid his arms out of his battered old backpack and took his place opposite her. A slightly pained smile formed on her face as he recovered his spiral notepad and trusty fountain pen from the backpack’s inside pocket.

  Finally he was ready, a clean page rested upwards on his lap, the cap unscrewed from his pen, nib poised. Then he tried, while still exuding some calm, to get his thoughts together. To work out which of the many questions he had in his mind he should first ask this mysterious, elusive woman. The reclusive and almost impossible to track down widow of the author, Jacob Ravens.

  But, she surprised him by asking a question of her own.

  The charm and welcome of her demeanour disappeared, instantly replaced by a vicious snarl.

  “So, Mr Hargreaves, how the fuck did you find me? And why the fuck can’t you leave poor Jacob be?”

  Two

  Maybe it was simply her glare which made the room feel suddenly so much colder. Hargreaves stared at her and tried his best not to shiver.

  Holding her gaze somehow, he swallowed and just squeezed his pen tighter between his fingers – as if it would be p
rotection enough. Even though he could see that scribbling down in shorthand was going to be a terrible insult to her.

  “How” – her voice boomed out that one word – “did you find me?”

  Hargreaves decided there was no harm at all in being honest. “I heard you were in Athens from a man named Marc Yarrix. He’s an acquaintance of my editor. He said that he saw you at the airport last week and couldn’t believe that it was the same Emilia Ravens he’d known back in New York when he met Jacob Ravens. But he was convinced it was you nonetheless.” Even though the hardness in her eyes was unyielding, he thought that a bit of flattery wouldn’t hurt. “Yarrix thought that you looked ‘too young’ and ‘too radiantly beautiful’ to be the same woman, but he was still sure it was you. Anyway, he told my editor, who told me, and I made my way to Athens and went around every hotel looking for an English lady named Emilia who answered your description. And here I am.”

  Clearly she was not much impressed by his perseverance or his ingenuity. “And they just told you, did they?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had no need to bribe them?”

  “I’m a journalist, the kind of bribe I can afford to pay isn’t going to loosen anyone’s tongue.”

  “You’d be surprised at how far sterling goes in Athens, Mr Hargreaves, you really would.”

  He wouldn’t call it warmth as such, but a certain acceptance came into her face as she stared at him. With a graceful casualness she took a large gulp of gin.

  “How old are you?” she demanded.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Derby.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never been there myself, but my once upon a time piano tutor was from Derby.”

  “Oh right?”

  “I was an old student, I suppose – mature to be taking up the instrument. I went to her when I was seventeen, as I felt my life was drifting and I thought that a twice weekly series of lessons might give it some structure. Plus, from when I was young, I was always a big fan of piano concertos. Miss Wilberforce, her name was. I let her seduce me on our third lesson.” A smile rose waywardly to her lips. “Do I shock you, Mr Hargreaves?”

  It was impossible for him to truly tell, but maybe a flush had come to his cheeks; they felt warm all of a sudden. “No,” he lied. Trying to give the impression he was a much more worldly man than was actually the case.

  She took another long sip of her drink and stared at him appraisingly. “She was twenty – no, probably more like twenty-five – years older than me and her best days were quite clearly behind her. But I’m still very glad I went to bed with her. She taught me things in the bedroom that I couldn’t have imagined. Things that still come in useful to this day.”

  Despite the coolness of the room, he felt a bead of sweat on his forehead as she continued to regard him with playful eyes that were caught somewhere between tantalisingly sexy and utterly cruel.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “A boyfriend?”

  “No. I’m not that way inclined.”

  “Aren’t you?” Her eyebrow raised. “Are you sure?”

  “I think so.”

  There was a silent chuckle on her lips. “Jacob was. Did you know that?”

  “Yes…” He hesitated a few seconds. “I’ve heard the rumours.”

  “What rumours?” she snapped.

  He swallowed heavily. “That the night he killed himself, he’d been with another man. In bed with another man.”

  She nodded once. “Actually, it was two men. Jacob came to appreciate having a number of warm bodies touching him at once.”

  “Right,” was all he could think of to say.

  “Normally sex made him feel happy. Euphoric even. But that night, for whatever reason, it most definitely didn’t.”

  “Maybe he felt guilty?” he ventured.

  “Over sex?” Her laugh was fulsome. “I’d cured him of any prudish hang-ups a long while back. Not that he was a maiden aunt when I met him. Jacob would never have got worked up over anything as ultimately inconsequential as sex.”

  Hargreaves had arrived with laudable ambitions: eager to know all about Ravens’ life and the man behind the fiction. He really hadn’t wanted to get caught up talking about the tawdriness of his untimely death. But now he was here.

  “The reasons for his suicide have long been speculated on…” He let the sentence trail off.

  “I know,” she almost smirked, “and a lot of them focus on me. A weight of idle gossip painting me as the terrible scarlet woman who drove him to it.”

  “Maybe I can set the record straight for you…”

  She raised her hand. “Don’t bother. After all, I did give him the revolver. Handed it to him with a passionate denunciation that can basically be summed up as ‘do everyone a favour and top yourself!’” She laughed again. “Still though, giving that he’d just screwed two shore-leaving sailors – gorgeous specimens, the pair of them – I was surprised that he did it right then.”

  “I’m sorry?” Without even thinking about it, he’d sat a little further on his seat. “You actually gave him the gun?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I may have loved Jacob, I might have married him, but I wanted him dead more than anything else I have ever wanted in my life.”

  Three

  Hargreaves did his best not to gasp. To hold back any great show of emotions as he processed what she’d told him.

  Not a great deal was known about the life of Jacob Ravens – which was why so much rumour and speculation surrounded him. But his death, by suicide, in a New York City hotel room in 1953 was one of the few incontrovertible facts. Beyond that, Hargreaves knew that he’d been born in Dorking during the First World War; that he’d gone to Harrow public school for a while, but left under dubious circumstances which Hargreaves hadn’t been able to get to the bottom of; and that he’d been married to this beautiful woman sitting in front of him. Of course, the most important fact of all was that he wrote one hundred and fifty-two short stories and four novels of incredible – and disturbingly other-worldly – horror fiction across the course of his short career.

  There was no consensus opinion as to where Ravens had lived for most of his life. It seemed like he’d had a vagabond existence almost from birth. Nor had Hargreaves been able to discover whether he held down a job away from writing. And with such a mystery where there should be a man, it was impossible to say what had inspired those magnificent tales, where his imagination went to conjure such images and dreadful creatures. In fact, all the blank spaces where there should be biography, just added to the mythos.

  As bizarre as it might sound, the man’s height even seemed to be in doubt. With some who knew him claiming that his slight frame barely scraped up to five foot eight, while others swearing he was over six foot with a barrel chest.

  Even his first cousin – the famed actor, Charles Ravens – when asked, was unable to offer any insights. Saying that although they were related, an old family feud meant that they’d never actually met.

  And that’s why Hargreaves had come all the way to Athens to speak to the one person who must have known Jacob Ravens better than any other. The elusive woman with whom he shared his life and who surely must have been able to answer all of Hargreaves’ questions and a thousand more beside.

  Now though, the space in which he could ask those questions seemed miles away. All of his pre-prepared talking points felt utterly irrelevant.

  “You wanted him dead?” Hargreaves stated finally.

  “Let me guess.” Her voice was bored and languid. “You discovered Jacob’s work when you were a spotty, hormonal adolescent. All that stuff about ‘the thin gossamer between life and death’, and ‘the maddening allure of youth’ – they spoke to you, didn’t they? His work made you feel connected to something other; a secret place beyond your limited experience or comprehension. Reading them made you feel le
ss alone, that your shy self was plugged in to something which the more popular boys would never understand. Could never understand.

  “So hungrily – like a new lover – you devoured all of Jacob’s stories and then became hooked on the mystery of the man himself. How could a writer who created tale after tale about ‘clinging onto life at all costs’, about ‘resisting the tempting allure of death’s grin’ have ended up killing himself in a poky New York hotel room?

  “To your narrow mind, to your young and enthusiastic consciousness, it didn’t make any sense. And as you got older, and connected with similarly awkward and like-minded men to yourself – arrested adolescents who were also followers – you swapped theories about what on earth could have happened. Once you had spent the standard four hours talking about the terrible and original wonder of his ideas, you moved on to what could have driven him to his demise. Subjecting his memory to amateur, half-baked psychology. You hunted for clues in his oeuvre; treating him as a mystery, rather than a man. It obsesses you, it consumes you. So much so, that when a new collected edition of his works comes out, you, Mr Hargreaves, go out of your way to track down his poor widow.

  “Is my description striking all kinds of bells for you?”

  Almost in spite of himself, he nodded.

  “Tell me, do you genuinely think that you’re the first over-zealous fan to track me down? You’re not. You’re really not. You’re not even the first fucking journalist to find me.” She stared at him with utter disdain. “Well, I’m going to tell you exactly what I told all of those who have preceded you. Jacob Ravens was a grade A shit of a man. A disreputable, uncaring, utterly nasty piece of filth. Of course, I didn’t realise this when I let him seduce me. But once he had me and had dug his claws into me, turned my head in a way no one has done before – or indeed since – then he revealed his true colours. I was too far gone then to do much about it, but I came to know exactly what he was – a vile, nasty and appalling bastard. I knew the real Jacob Ravens and I suffered the consequences.”