Skelgill grimaces, though in their embrace she does not see his concern.
‘Getting worse or better?’
‘Better, I think, Guv.’
Skelgill steps away. Keeping a grip of her elbows he helps her down off the horizontal slab, which is about three feet higher than ground level. He leads her to the rear of the vertical shard. She walks sluggishly, and he gathers in the dangling rope and feeds it into her hands for support. Then he darts back and similarly assists Irina Yanukovych. It is hard to tell if she is more or less affected by the drug – in the gloom she regards him languidly, but she manages to walk unaided and, albeit unsteadily, to join DS Jones in hanging on to the rope.
Skelgill rips off his rucksack and tips out its remaining contents. There is a second harness and various lengths of rope and sundry gadgets. He has little more than darkness in which to work, which is perhaps just as well for now he guides one after the other of the Ukrainian girl’s bare feet into the leg loops of the apparatus and slides it up to her waist, doing his best to tuck in the sarong to preserve some sort of modesty. Then he stoops and grabs a handful of climbing paraphernalia – these are ascenders, devices for climbing a rope, he clips them on and secures them to the harness. He looks at DS Jones and mouths an instruction.
‘She’s got to climb.’
DS Jones whispers to the girl, who nods and speaks in turn into DS Jones’s ear.
‘She’s done it before, Guv – national service.’
‘Tell her to go.’
The girl, despite her obvious lethargy, understands what she must do – and though fear has the power to immobilise, now it drives flight. Slowly – painfully slowly to Skelgill’s anxious eyes – she begins to scale the rope.
He unbuckles his own harness and lets it drop to the ground. He kneels and, carefully holding the leg loops in position, he presents it to DS Jones. She steps into the loops and allows him to raise the gear to her waist. Again there is an awkward intimate moment, but the exigency means decorum must be set aside. Indeed, Irina Yanukovych is getting the hang of it and is already above head height. Skelgill reaches to rig up the remaining ascenders for his colleague.
‘Remember your training.’
His words are a command – he refers to a course he runs for police recruits, the basic escape from a mineshaft or pothole, accomplished with more rudimentary hand-tied Prusik loops – but DS Jones nods as though it were a question.
‘Yes, Guv – but what about you?’
Skelgill glances anxiously over his shoulder – for DS Jones almost cries out these last words. It has dawned upon her that he has forfeited his own means of escape.
‘I didn’t bank on there being three of us – my mistake.’ He grins ingenuously. ‘Now shift.’
‘But, Guv – what will you do?’
‘Improvise.’
‘But –’
He grabs her face between his hands and speaks with renewed urgency, almost spitting the words. ‘Listen to me. From the top you might have ten minutes’ head start. Get the moon at your back and run if you can. When you meet the wall turn left. Stay on the path. After half a mile look for a strip of cloth on a branch. Untie it. It marks the way to the bottom of the mine – in the gully where it’s boarded up – remember?’ (She nods once.) ‘There’s a bin bag under a pile of bracken, to the left of the tunnel entrance. It’s got warm clothes, energy drinks, mint cake – and my phone – if you can get a signal.’
He stoops to pick up the rope, and then from behind he reaches around her waist to secure the running end. This could be a hug of sorts – but the action is swift and he steps away and delivers her a stinging slap across the buttock.
‘Up you go, lass.’
His unexpected prompt sees DS Jones respond accordingly. He moves aside to give her space – there is the splash of water as he inadvertently treads in the shallow margins of the pool. She begins to ascend – and immediately it becomes clear what he has done with the rope: as she goes up, so it does too – and within thirty seconds there is no loose end that could be shaken by a pursuer attempting to foil the escape.
But Skelgill is well and truly stranded.
All the while from afar the quietened chanting has floated reassuringly – if it ever could be such – telling Skelgill that the coven has been otherwise occupied. But now that changes. The drumbeat drops in tempo, and it is apparent that the coven is making its ponderous return to the Apse. Skelgill must be cognisant of the danger – for he stoops to fumble for his knife – though he has eyes only for the moonlit shaft above, and the two spectral figures that slither towards safety, silhouetted against the midnight blue of the sky. Already they are well out of reach, halfway to heaven, and another minute will see their bare soles kick to salvation.
In the black hell beneath, Skelgill turns to face his foes. The incantation, at first growing in volume as the group approaches the altar stones, suddenly dies away. There is a deathly silence, not a breath, not a cry of alarm – only the cold drip of water behind him. Then comes the shuffling of feet. Darker than the darkness twelve figures slowly materialise, ranged six on either side of the great upright, the void beneath their monk-hoods blacker than coal. And from behind the monolith a thirteenth slowly emerges – the butcher with the sword – the Magistra it would seem – for embroidered on the cloak Skelgill can discern the glinting motif of an inverted pentagram incorporating a ram’s head. And grasped in one fist – now raised aloft – is the real thing, blind eyes opaque in the moonlight, tongue lolling, blood congealed about the severed neck. If the coven has been thwarted in its despicable act...
*
Though no person moves, gradually the chant resumes – no drum now, just an alien phrase of five syllables, stressed on the last and repeated. There has been no debate, no recriminations over the missing girls, no discussion about what to do next – it is as though the coven operates as one mind, a sinister subterranean predator that has seamlessly transferred the focus of its hypnotic powers to its new quarry.
The Magistra levels the sword to point directly at Skelgill. He stands rooted at the edge of the black pool, arms akimbo, his expression impassive. He might be at bay but he appears determined to reveal neither confidence nor fear; he knows that every second’s procrastination increases the chances of the girls’ escape.
The stand off seems interminable.
And then he makes a move – a small step... backwards.
Some members of the coven respond, and in a minor way break ranks – the incantation for just a moment loses its unity – as if certain voices reveal a tremor of jubilation; and then the chant resumes its harmony, its vigour renewed and its volume raised.
Skelgill takes another step; the water rises over his boots and up to his shins. His eyes are fixed upon the sword, unblinking.
And then – another step – and another. The water reaches his knees – his thighs – and engulfs his waist. But rather than raise his arms he holds them stiffly – and now his hands are beneath the surface.
He is a good twenty feet out in the pool, and still, slowly, he backs away – seemingly mesmerised, moving like an automaton that is commanded by the will of the coven.
The deeper water must be freezing, placing Skelgill at risk of succumbing to cold shock – and indeed as the rising tide reaches his chest his lips part and his breathing starts to become more urgent, deep and rasping.
At thirty-five feet from the shore Skelgill’s shoulders submerge. His face is little more than a pale oval in the darkness that thickens beyond him. The chanting has become more frenzied and disorderly, as though its exponents are excited by the impact of their magic; rogue shrieks of triumph punctuate the rhythm of the incantation.
As if swayed by the collective hysteria, and sensing the moment, the Magistra raises the sword – and then makes as if to cast it point first at Skelgill.
Skelgill’s head disappears beneath the surface.
There are a few bubbles.
Then nothing
more.
The coven is silent.
After perhaps five minutes the Magistra turns and walks through the line of hooded figures. The assembly, resuming its chant, falls in and follows.
22. RECKONING
As the stream reputed to be the source of the Black Beck trickles from the rudely barricaded mine entrance, DS Jones and Irina Yanukovych huddle like itinerant beggars against the rock wall of the narrow canyon. They have unearthed the concealed bin-liner and now each wears a baggy fleecy and what might be ski-pants (though they exhibit signs of having been pressed into use for fishing); items that Skelgill had hurriedly selected – presumably with DS Jones and himself in mind. The Ukrainian girl is hungrily devouring a bar of Kendal mint cake – probably for the first time in her life – and DS Jones has an open bottle of juice in one hand and Skelgill’s mobile phone in the other.
Their frame of mind is hard to discern. From high the full moon illuminates two blonde crowns – their eyes are hidden in shadow beneath their brows. The impression is of a kind of exhaustion – no surprise given their harrowing experience, the tranquillising effects of the narcotic, and the physically demanding escape. But if they rest in reverie like climbers who have successfully scaled their target peak, they must know the task is but half complete; once recovered they must press on – and, as Skelgill is wont to point out, most mountain accidents occur on the descent.
And there is no phone signal.
DS Jones waves the handset in the prescribed figure-of-eight pattern – but even if there were a signal in this part of the Langdales, the rock walls of the gully in which they hide would shield its reach; they might as well be in a cave. She glances at the girl beside her – they are not so different – in age and physique and appearance – though she cannot fail to have noticed that Irina Yanukovych was beginning to flag as they traversed the steep wooded hillside from the point marked by Skelgill’s coded signal. Now they must surely fly – for this cannot be the most expedient of sanctuaries – if pursuers approach, they are cornered with nowhere to run. But Skelgill made no suggestion for what to do next. DS Jones is checked by indecision.
Then comes a sound.
The girls hear it simultaneously, and Irina Yanukovych instinctively grabs DS Jones by the wrist. They stiffen, listening intently. Crouching together in the moonlight, they could be a pair of ancient forest inhabitants, caught out up to mischief when they ought to be safe with their kin.
It comes again – and again – and again – growing in intensity, though regular, perhaps every two seconds – a disturbing noise, a short rasping hiss, as if a creature is suffering some kind of maltreatment.
Though they turn their heads from side to side it is plain that they cannot identify its source – yet it is closing in upon them – it seems to be in the air – like some winged demon that circles above, nearing with each pass.
DS Jones prises herself free from her panicked companion. She scrambles to her feet and stumbles to Skelgill’s hidden cache. Amongst its remaining contents is an axe. She steps in front of the other girl – now cowering in terror – pluckily facing down the gully towards the black shadow of the forest.
‘Here!’
The strangled cry comes from behind. She spins around – her face a mask of shock – for the voice is harsh and anguished... yet terrifyingly familiar.
Skelgill.
Panting like a dog – his features drawn into a fearful grimace, his hair plastered across his forehead, his skin smeared with blood and clay, his shirt soaked and torn – he clatters against the planks that bar the entrance and stretches imploringly through the gaps like a desperate refugee, as though at his back is some great dread – a tsunami – a volcanic eruption – the devil himself.
‘The axe!’
Again his hoarse cry implores his colleague to act – but DS Jones drops the axe and hurls herself at the partition, first grabbing his hands and then forcing upon him a desperate embrace, their bodies separated by the rough barrier.
‘Guv – Guv – what happened – what happened – it’s all right.’
In contrast to her vigorous greeting, her voice is soothing – and the contact she initiates seems to quell Skelgill’s disquiet. He does not resist her attention, though his breath comes hard and fast, and anguish haunts his eyes.
‘The girl – how much – English – does she – understand?’
Between gasps he blurts out the disjointed question.
‘Not so much, Guv.’
‘He’s – in there.’
‘Who, Guv?’
‘Her boyfriend – I won’t – say his name.’
But DS Jones mouths the word.
‘Pavlenko?’
Staring, Skelgill nods.
‘I had to swim for it – through a sump – that pool’s an offshoot – of the beck – I nearly – didn’t make it – aargh!’ He suddenly cries out as if there is a stabbing pain in his temple. He closes his eyes and pulls a face in revulsion at the image that must be conjured. ‘There’s a body – jammed in the sump – my lungs were – bursting – I just pulled it free in time – I felt his – missing tooth.’
Again Skelgill makes an agonised groan. DS Jones reaches up and, much as he had clasped her face – just a short while ago – she now does the same to him. And again it is as if her touch conducts away some of the dread – for his eyes now recover their focus, and his jaw takes on a determined set.
‘The axe.’
‘Sure, Guv.’
She retrieves the tool – a hefty hatchet, a good two pounds or more – and slips it through the bars of what is about to be a short-lived prison.
‘Stand back.’
She does as he bids – and he wastes no time in smashing the barrier, hacking at a plank at its middle, and then attacking the intersections where cross-members are nailed. He yells with some abandon, as if it helps to release the tension of his ordeal. But he only goes so far as create the necessary gap to squeeze through. DS Jones steps forwards – but now he pins her arms to her sides. He glances at Irina Yanukovych; she shivers anxiously.
‘You pair feeling better?’
DS Jones nods decisively.
‘I think the fresh air’s helped – and the mint cake.’
Skelgill forces a grin.
‘You need to go – it’s not safe to stay here.’
Now a look of alarm returns to DS Jones’s features.
‘But, Guv – what now?’ She registers that his command excludes himself.
Skelgill turns away; there is a resolute look in his eyes. After a moment, he speaks over his shoulder. He has chosen to ignore her question.
‘No phone signal?’
‘No, Guv.’
‘Come on – bring the bag.’
He leads the way out of the moonlit gully, its steep sides velvety black, the beck at its centre a silvery ribbon. At the mouth of the cleft he stops and turns and puts out his right arm like a traffic policeman.
‘Stay dead level on the contour. You’ll pass Ticker’s camp among some pines – then just after that there’s a cliff with a waterfall. Follow the beck all the way to the culvert. There’s a grassy area with a standing stone – Meg’s Hat. Just bunk down there – keep warm – don’t show yourselves to the road – even if you hear a car passing. I’ll know where to find you. Go.’
DS Jones inhales to reply, her face questioning – but Skelgill strides away, axe at the ready. Though his features have lost their horror-struck cast, it is apparent that he still bears a certain burden. While he has spoken of the discovery of the corpse of Leonid Pavlenko, what he has not said is that older remains lie in the submerged tunnel through which he escaped.
*
From his vantage point on the cliff above the quarry, Skelgill can see the coven, dark shapes, still hooded, outlined against the paler slate of the bedrock. Its members stand in a loose assembly of individual clusters – they do not appear to be listening to a single voice. The Magistra is apparent in one such clique –
the metallic embroidery upon the cloak glints beneath the stars. This person seems shorter now – perhaps because alongside is a much taller figure, bending to confer – and with these two is the ‘guard’, whom Skelgill spied earlier. His wiry form and paramilitary garb, and the casual manner in which he drapes his broken shotgun over his right forearm, tell Skelgill a good deal. He knows this man: Jed Tarr, gamekeeper to Blackbeck estate. The pair of German Shepherds he holds on the leash merely confirms the identification.
And between the gathering and the cliff are parked vehicles that also come in for Skelgill’s scrutiny. For a start there is a black Porsche Cayenne with damage to its nearside front wing. Beside it is a short wheelbase Defender, Coniston Green, if his eyes are not tricked by the moonlight. Others include a new plate Range Rover, an Audi estate painted with the livery of a well-known local firm of land agents, a matching pair of popular marque fleet cars – also new – a small white van of the type employed by tradesmen, and three more modest motors, making ten in all. Skelgill nods pensively. Certain of these are familiar for obvious reasons – and some he has seen parked outside the Langdale Arms. Together they comprise the convoy that almost ran him off the road.
But now there is the sound of another vehicle.
As Skelgill’s ears prick up, so too do those of the coven – and it is evident from their reaction that this is an unexpected arrival. The figures turn as one towards the track that leads up to the disused workings – and, for the first time, a single voice is raised sufficiently for Skelgill to make out the words.
‘I thought the gate was supposed to be locked?’
It is a male that speaks – the tall figure beside the Magistra – and the question, uttered rather accusingly, is directed towards Jed Tarr. Skelgill at once recognises the privately educated tones as those of the landowner.
Tarr does not reply, for he is now regarding the bright beam that has swung like a searchlight into the quarry, illuminating its shattered cliffs, to home in upon the gathering beneath Skelgill. Tarr would wish to shield his eyes, but with the gun over one wrist and the dogs restrained about the other all he can do is dip his head and squint into the oncoming headlamps. Members of the coven raise their cloaked sleeves against the blindness. Skelgill, in his lofty eyrie, is not troubled – indeed he can see the nature of what approaches. It is a tractor with a bulldozer attachment, and – going by the splintered timber rattling in the toothed bucket – it has accounted for the locked gate. But of equal significance is what follows – a second convoy – this time consisting of farmers’ pick-up trucks. These vehicles fan out, forming an arc perhaps a cricket pitch short of Tarr, who stands his ground before the uninvited visitors. The coven members, on the other hand, have backed off and converged into a tighter group, brooding and silent.
Murder by Magic (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 5) Page 23