The Cold Calling, page 21
He hadn’t meant to startle her; he wanted to help her. What if her poor sister had been … No! Don’t even think of it!
What if? All those what ifs?
What if the good and patient Chief Inspector Peter Hatch had been right all along, and there were simply several common or garden, sad, uncomplicated killers out there, rather than one person harbouring a warped and lethal obsession with earth-magic?
What if his own exercise in pendulum dowsing over the maps and the journals had been as spurious as the ‘shamanic powers’ of which he was so pathetically proud?
What if tonight’s paranormal ‘experience’ at the High Knoll burial chamber was no more than a perverse and futile combination of paranoia and wishful thinking?
What if Sydney Mars-Lewis was no more than an old humbug of the most ludicrous kind, trying to make something significant out of his sexual ambivalence and social inadequacy, unable to face up to his reduced status as a failed actor relegated to the end of the pier with a stuffed bird?
Well, these were hardly new questions. Indeed, one night, in a dressing room in Scarborough, about seven years ago, he had almost given way to an impulse to hang himself by his dressing-gown cord from an overhead heating pipe.
Wearily, he climbed out of bed and switched on the central light, which was half smothered by grimy beams.
‘An old manic-depressive, you are, boy. That’s the only certainty.’
From his suitcase, he took the fax he’d received, just before leaving the caravan, from Gareth Milburn at Crucible, the pagan magazine. He’d asked the boy for information about the readers’ letters he didn’t print. (Modern pagans, ever anxious to promote a positive image of their faith as a pure and caring nature-religion, would almost invariably reject the propaganda received from the darker practitioners.)
Gareth’s fax said:
We get fairly regular letters from something called the Black Temple of Set, with a Milton Keynes postmark, accusing us of being wimps who are scared to discover where the ‘real power’ lies. There’s a crank who just calls himself the Green Man – postmarks from all over the country, so it could actually be a bunch of people – who reckons the Pagan Federation lost its way when it turned its back on blood sacrifice, and claims blood sports are a vital part of our heritage. There’s also – this is really sick – a woman with an Omen fixation offering to have babies for use in satanic rites at very competitive rates. If I can find any on the spike, I’ll fax them.
The Green Man was the one which lingered. There must be a dozen black temples of Set; their adherents also attended heavy metal concerts. The Green Man’s enthusiasm for blood sports – unfashionable, reactionary and anathema to modern pagans – would certainly provide a motive for the ritual killing of Maria Capaldi.
And motive, Cindy thought, was important here. These were not entirely psychotic killings; behind them was a belief structure, however warped. Gareth’s theory that the Green Man might be a group of people was interesting. This would account for the different methods of slaughter.
The Green Man seemed promising from the start. And that was the problem: the Green Man had been in Cindy’s thoughts from the moment he left home to drive across Wales to the Black Mountains. The image of the archetypal gargoyle, with foliage foaming from his mouth and nose and sap in his veins, had nested in Cindy’s mind.
Which would explain, for sure, the dark and frightening image he had seen on the periphery of his vision at the height of his shamanic ritual at the Knoll. He had conjured in his head the smoky form. A thought-form, nothing more. A message from himself to himself. Utterly terrifying, but completely unreliable.
There came a tapping at the door. Cindy jumped in alarm and dropped the fax paper.
‘Who is it?’ Shocked at the elderly quaver in his shrunken voice.
‘Cindy?’ An even smaller voice. ‘It’s me. Grayle. I saw the light under your door. Tell me to go away if this is inconvenient.’
Cindy smiled in relief and went to open the door. ‘No, my love. An old insomniac, I am.’
The American girl stood there in jeans and an overlong sweatshirt. With her hair loose, she looked all of nineteen and somewhat waif-like. A mistake, it was, to assume that all Americans were brimming with self-confidence.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘All that shaman stuff, and then finding out you were a guy and all, it kind of … fazed me out.’
‘No, me, it is, who should be sorry. Just an old misfit, I am, really. But I do have a kettle. Would you care for a cup of tea?’
Grayle found a grin from somewhere. Also, a small sheaf of folded airmail paper.
‘I thought about what you said about dreams and ancient sites turning people crazy. This, uh, this is the rest of the letter from my sister. The part I don’t show people.’
Maiden awoke not breathing.
His mouth was full of solid, gritty darkness. When he tried to breathe, the air couldn’t get through; his throat was also tight-packed and bulging and when he tried to cough he just took more of it into his lungs, and there was a meagre wheezing sound.
Fighting for the cough tautened his muscles and made his body curl and jerk, as if he was struggling inside a straitjacket, but the cough wouldn’t come out, just built up and locked, and he went into a blind panic and rolled out of bed, over and over on the floor, numbed fingers tearing at his throat.
Cindy made some tea on the dressing table and, while it was brewing, read the last pages from Ersula Underhill, in which the girl described her dream of lying on the stone, shoulder to shoulder with a decaying body. Scary fun, Grayle? Oh dear.
Grayle sat at the foot of the bed, hands clasped between her knees, clearly unsure of quite how seriously to take all this. Reading the letter had told Cindy a lot about the two sisters, how they differed in their beliefs and perceptions. Grayle was the insecure one, the scatty one; it must have taken a great deal of determination for her to come here. And a deal of anxiety, too.
She looked up at him. ‘I met some people … at the Rollright Stones?’
‘Oh yes?’
‘This guy, he said sometimes you would encounter – in your dreams – what he called guardians. Is that what I think it is?’
‘The genius loci. Sometimes. But many guardians have been created by people using these places for worship. Elemental spirits. Ritual stones are like computers. Spiritual entities are stored there. For centuries sometimes, even millennia, to deter robbers and vandals.’
‘Right.’
‘And so anyone sleeping at an ancient site should not be surprised to encounter one. The deliberate act of dreaming is an invasion, and the guardian would be programmed, as it were, to react. The guardian, by nature, is a fearsome apparition which can be dangerous. Strong nerves are called for.’
‘Well, sure, Ersula has strong nerves, but …’
‘However,’ Cindy said, ‘this doesn’t sound like a guardian to me. More of a trace-image. An ancient site usually holds more than one strand of history, see. For instance, in the Dark Ages, we have old shrines taken over by somewhat degenerate Druidic cults, not averse to human sacrifice. This could very well be a flash-image from some sort of blood sacrifice.’
Grayle said, ‘You know what really scares me about this country? It’s all so close, so near the surface.’
‘It’s near the surface in many parts of the Earth.’ Cindy poured tea. ‘It’s just that here, so little has altered visually over the centuries that our imaginations do not have to work so hard.’
‘My imagination is kind of like an untrained Dobermann. Most of the time you have to forcibly restrain it.’
Cindy smiled. ‘Look, lovely, you trusted me, I shall trust you. This particular site is referred to by two names – High Knoll and Black Knoll, and they seem to reflect two sides of it.’
‘Good and evil?’
‘Possibly as simple as that, probably not. The concepts of good and evil seldom apply in this sphere. I was thinking more of male and female. The female side represented by the vision of the Virgin Mary, itself reestablishing a link with the earliest sun-worship at the site. And then we have the male element. Linked, perhaps, to the bloodier aspect.’
‘Right.’ Grayle accepted a cup of tea and held it on her knees. ‘But where is this headed? Are we saying that Ersula – who we know was charmed by the idea of the Virgin appearing at this Stone Age site – are we saying she inadvertently let herself in for something … old and bad?’
‘This letter was the last you heard? You don’t know when she left here?’
‘I know that some time after she wrote this, she was wandering around in a kind of dislocated state. She met these people at the Rollright Stones. They’re nice. The people, not the stones.’
‘No. Those stones have their problems. Why did she go there?’
‘I guess she had something on her mind. Maybe she was looking for friends. Someone to confide in. But maybe, if something bad happened to you in connection with prehistoric remains, these people, Matthew and Janny, maybe they’re not the kind of people to help you. They’re real friendly, obliging, all of that, but a little, uh, enthusiastic. Kind of naive, I guess. Anything bad, they’d tell you you had it wrong.’
‘Have you been yet … to see Mr Falconer?’
‘I figured I’d go tomorrow. I wanted to gather as much background as I could before I confronted the guy. He sounds kind of formidable.’
‘So I believe.’
‘Actually, I was given a videotape of his TV programme which I hoped to view before I went over there, on account I don’t even know what he looks like, but this place doesn’t appear to be equipped with the necessary hardware.’
‘I should quite like to view that, too,’ Cindy said thoughtfully. ‘I travel around too much to see much television. I wonder if Marcus Bacton has a video machine.’
‘Marcus Bacton. Yeah. I need to talk with him too. Maybe I need to spend another day here. Look … OK …’ Grayle focused on Cindy over the rim of her white teacup. ‘You know why I’m here. Why are you here?’
‘Ah.’ Cindy needed time to think. ‘It would take too long. We’ll talk tomorrow. After I see Mr Bacton.’
‘Oh. OK.’ Grayle put her cup on the floor. ‘Uh, this … guardian … trace-image, whatever. I mean, they can’t harm you, these things, can they?’
‘Not … not physically. No. Probably not physically.’
‘But they can fuck up your head?’
‘I suppose … Yes, as you so charmingly put it, I suppose they can fuck up your head.’
But that’s not what really worries you, is it?
Cindy lay in bed again, with the light out. It would be dawn soon. No matter; he didn’t need much sleep these days.
The Green Man.
The oldest guardian. Stern defender of the Earth. Just talking it out with Grayle Underhill had made it so much clearer in his mind. He could almost feel the Green Man writhing there.
And Grayle’s sister was missing.
Am I quite mad? Cindy wondered before sleep consented to take him. Please God, let me be mad.
XXV
This is how it goes, Grayle thought, struggling with the zipper on her jeans. This is how it happens.
Outside the window, morning rinsed the pink stone of the village.
So you do something rash and you wind up in a strange place. You’re lonely and anxious and it all seems so futile. This is when you’re at your most vulnerable. This is how rich, empty widows wind up backing half-assed business deals and homeless kids get sucked into fruitcake religious sects.
Somebody is kind to you, is how it starts. Deep into the night, somebody wants to listen.
Just that, by daylight, the whole idea of a cross-dressing actor-ventriloquist who believed he was into a mystical tradition with a direct line to the megalith-builders seemed a whole lot less convincing than it had last night.
Plus, why should Cindy suddenly pick up on her in a bar? What was he doing here anyway and why had he not wanted to tell her last night? If he was looking up his old friend Marcus Bacton, why was he staying at the inn, and why was he alone?
Grayle felt calmer and stronger this morning. She would investigate the University of the Earth. She would do it objectively and efficiently. She would find out what it was that had so seduced Ersula, but she would resist its allure. And Cindy’s.
Get wise. Grayle moved down the dark, twisty stairs to chase up a small breakfast before seeking out Cefn-y-bedd. Put some distance.
‘What’s up with you, Maiden?’ Marcus dangerously dug a fork into the toaster to retrieve a fractured slice. ‘I mean, what the bloody hell is up? You look like you haven’t slept.’
‘That’s because I haven’t slept.’
‘Oh … shit!’ Marcus held the toaster upside down and a million dry crumbs came out on the stone worktop. At the sight of the blackened heap, Maiden erupted into dry coughs and stumbled to his feet to run himself a glass of water. Marcus brushed the debris to the floor and carried the toast to the table on the end of a fork.
‘That’s it.’ He sat down. ‘That is fucking it. ‘
Malcolm, the dog, ambled over, checked out the ancient crumbs, sniffed and turned away. Maiden drank the water slowly.
‘Had a piece for the magazine yesterday.’ Marcus unwrapped a pack of hard, chilled butter. ‘Woman in Norfolk claims actual fairies have been performing scenes from A Midsummer-Night’s Dream in her bloody greenhouse. Been a subscriber since 1962. What do I do with that?’
‘Offer her the editorship?’
Marcus stared at him. ‘You may be right. I’ll bury Mrs Willis today, full honours, be as nice as I can to the relatives, if any turn up. And then—’
‘She have any children?’
‘Niece in Hay. Another in Allensmore. One of them, I can’t remember which, thinks she might make it to the funeral.’
‘But if Mrs Willis was Annie Davies …’
‘Then there’ll be a few cousins and second cousins in the village. But did they know? And if they did, will they admit it? Old prejudices die hard, places like this. I’ll bury her, and then that’s it.’
‘What is?’
‘Get out. Piss off. Surrender The Phenomenologist to the mad biddies. Put this place on the market. Must be some appeal in a castle, even if the house is disintegrating.’
Maiden filled the kettle, set it down on the stove. ‘Maybe Falconer would buy it.’
‘Thank you, Maiden. Over my dead, fucking body. Rather flog it as an outward-bound centre for your ten-year-old car-thieves.’
Marcus was suddenly sunk into profound misery, bloodhound eyes blurring behind his glasses.
‘Went into the bloody Healing Room late last night. Core of the house for the past year. All those bottles and jars, with Mrs Willis around, they were full of mystery. Potions and elixirs. All drawing energy from her. Full of a sort of condensed life-force. And at the same time you’d feel this overwhelming peace and calm in there. Now it’s just old bottles full of dead and rotting gunge. Have to put them all in bin bags, take them to the tip.’
‘I’ll do it, if you like.’
Marcus shook his head, splattering butter on a fragment of brittle toast. ‘If there’s a message in those bottles, Maiden, it’s for me. I look at my life … I mean is that fucking it? Standing in a desert, surrounded by graves. Celia. Little Sally. Mrs Willis. Possibility of seeing them again’s about all there is to look forward to, you get to my age.’
‘You’re sixty,’ Maiden protested.
‘Unless, of course, your own version of the Other Side is the truth of it,’ Marcus said. ‘In which case we’re all stuffed, aren’t we?’
There was the sound of tyres on the forecourt. Marcus dropped his burnt toast.
Maiden saw someone getting out of a very old but beautifully polished black Morris Minor. ‘Woman. Late middle-age, mauvy hair? Tweed skirt, kind of mohair sweater with white woolly lambs on the front. Gold earrings, necklaces, bangles.’
‘Sounds hellish,’ Marcus said. ‘If we keep quiet maybe it’ll go away.’
‘Might be one of Mrs Willis’s nieces.’
It certainly wasn’t a policeman, so Maiden made for the front door and dragged it open before the woman had time to knock. It was a strange moment. She just stood there looking at him for several seconds. She was as tall as he was. She had the small, glittering eyes of a bird of prey.
‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘You’re not Marcus Bacton, are you, lovely?’
A long, flat-topped hill. Like a bed, with a pillow of trees at one end. Grayle headed toward the trees, as directed by Amy Jenkins, the landlady. Remembering what Ersula had written about the curious magic of this place.
She came to a plain farm gate and it was open. Walked through, and suddenly – like … wow – there was, below her, this unbelievably beautiful, rambling, mellow stone house spread out like a sleeping lion. The kind of country house they tried to clone in Beverly Hills and failed because the result was just too movie-set perfect. High walls suggested gardens with fishpools and stuff.
Typically – because the house was irrelevant to what went on there – Ersula had never referred to it, except as ‘the center’. It looked more of a home than an educational establishment, which explained why Ersula and the others had had apartments over the stables, and why folks on the courses needed accommodation in the village. Couldn’t be more than five or six bedrooms in the house itself.
And just one car parked in front, a rebuilt VW beetle, pink. A squirrel scampered past, otherwise no sign of life.
Clouds were gathering, and it looked like more than a gesture. She should’ve come in the car, but walking a couple of miles gave you a handle on a place. Fall was setting in, the first dead leaves curling together on the brown gravel as she tried – because there were no other options – the huge, solid, iron-studded door.
Tugging a bell pull on a black chain, she stepped back in alarm when it responded with this deep, churchy tolling, way back into the house. And Grayle thought, in a kind of terror, Suppose the door opens and it’s Ersula. Ersula in a bathrobe, hair mussed and smelling of recent sex?
