The Calling

by Jane Goodall

  After he’d left, she realised she was actually shaking all over. There was tension in every nerve of her body, and her mouth was dry as she picked up the phone again and dialled the number for the guesthouse in Aberystwyth. Praying silently, she counted the rings. Eight, nine, ten ... fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

  ‘Hello?’ the voice on the other end was stern and abrupt.

  ‘Is that Mr Hughes? ... I’m sorry,’ Briony said. ‘I’m really sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if Gareth Daniels is there. In room five. It’s sort of an emergency.’

  ‘It’d better be, this time of night. Got me out of bed, you did. Mr Daniels left earlier this evening, so I can’t help you I’m afraid.’

  Briony stood clutching the receiver. She could call his number in Paris, but he couldn’t possibly have got back to Paris. If he’d taken the last train out of Aber, he might have been able to get as far as London. Yes. He might be in London. But where?

  She tramped wearily into the bathroom and, feeling completely wretched, began to run a bath. So that’s it, then? Her head was throbbing. She opened the bathroom cabinet to look for some Disprin, and came face-to-face with the little box of Minilyn that she’d left behind. She grabbed it and threw it in the waste bin in the corner.

  Some hours later she was curled up on the bed, sunk into that strange comfort zone sleep can offer even when life seems to be falling apart on you. From somewhere distant, a phone began to ring. ‘Gareth,’ she muttered, hauling herself back to consciousness and practically throwing herself out of bed. Enough light came through the uncurtained sitting-room window to help her navigate a straight course to the telephone table. She grabbed the receiver and clutched it to her ear, muttering a silent, please. But there was silence on the other end, too.

  ‘Gareth?’ the tears came again, fuzzing up her words. ‘Gareth? If it’s you, please speak to me. You’ve got the wrong idea. There’s no one else here, I promise you. I don’t want it to be all over — really I don’t. Gareth?’

  Silence. She waited, holding her breath. No, that wasn’t Gareth. That wasn’t Gareth’s silence she could hear. The disconnecting click sounded and she was left standing in the dark, listening to the live burr of the telephone.

  27

  After the stormy interlude of yesterday the heat was back in full force. Aidan picked up the bulky leather jacket he’d obediently sweated in for the past ten days and let it drop back on the bed. Something had to be done about that thing. He eased the penknife out of the lining and used it to cut around the armholes. Not an easy job — it took him several minutes on each side to slice through the thick leather, hacking roughly across the seams under the arms — but when he’d finished he realised he’d done himself a big favour. He slipped the dismembered garment over his bare chest and swung his arms in circles from the shoulder, feeling the rush of air.

  When the phone rang, he tossed the receiver from one hand to the other before putting it to his ear. It was Doc Latham, ringing over an hour past the agreed contact time. The surprise was that he’d rung at all.

  ‘I was told I had to talk to you every day, Doc. What happened to yesterday or the day before? When I phone you I get nobodaddy the other end.’

  ‘Sorry.’ It was a sulky concession. ‘Things have been happening, Aidan. I’d better fill you in. Can you meet me in half an hour?’

  ‘Depends where. I got an important date today, up in the Highgate cemetery.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’m in Islington. There’s a Wimpy Bar on the Holloway Road, just a bit up from the tube station. I’ll be there at eleven.’

  Aidan walked into the rendezvous at ten past, to find the Doc hunched over a glass of Coke and looking distinctly the worse for wear. He turned awkwardly towards Aidan, as if he had a stiff neck. ‘Hey! You’ve ruined that lovely jacket.’

  ‘Bout time too,’ said Aidan, throwing his keys on the table and straddling the chair opposite. ‘I’m learnin how to dress for work. You ordered anything to eat?’

  ‘Do me a favour — don’t bring any of those Wimpyburger things near me. I’m feeling fragile.’

  ‘Cure for your condition, Doc, is a glass of orange juice, two aspirin and a good lie down with a packet of frozen peas on your head.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that. Now let’s get on with it, shall we? Your report, Aidan. Fire away.’

  ‘You’re supposed to call me Nick, remember.’

  Steve got out his notebook. ‘Who effing cares? Nobody round here is going to know either of us from Wild Bill Hickock. Just get on with it, will you? Last time I talked to you you’d met up with that journalist who seemed to have a promising inside line.’

  ‘Logan Royce.’ Aidan went through the details of their second conversation, and the encounter with Flak at the Hot Stepper.

  ‘This was Saturday, right?’ Steve looked confused. ‘What time did you say?’

  ‘We got there about ten.’

  ‘You’re sure about that? When you say “about ten” do you mean before or after?’

  ‘Just before. I checked the time soon as we arrived.’

  Steve clasped his head in both hands. ‘Oh, stuff you, Aidan. Do you realise you’ve just given our prime suspect an alibi?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Macready got attacked on Saturday night, at his home in Hampstead. Somewhere between nine thirty and ten.’

  ‘He okay?’

  ‘Basically no. It was some kind of knife attack and he was quite badly injured, but he seems to be on the mend.’

  ‘Why is Flak your prime suspect?’

  The question prompted a mini-lecture on the case history, to which Aidan listened with mounting annoyance. He’d known about the Deff Row gag, obviously, but to this point no one had even mentioned the arson attacks on Macready and Latham. Come to think of it, maybe DI Williams had tried to say something, but he’d been fobbed off with some vague stuff about keeping a lookout for anyone with pyromaniac tendencies. Since he’d also been told to keep a lookout for Flak, that just about meant the same thing. If he’d known why, he’d have played his hand differently over the past few days.

  ‘You look a bit pissed off,’ Steve finished up. ‘Wanna talk about it?’

  ‘I’m just wonderin if you’ve told me what I need to know yet. I don’t like to go off half-cocked, Doc, specially when I’m dealing with people that might have homicidal tendencies.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Steve muttered, avoiding his eye. ‘I wasn’t authorised to brief you on this before. Now let’s get through the rest of your report, shall we? What’s this mission you’ve got up in Highgate cemetery?’

  Well two could play at the game of selective reporting, Aidan thought. What if he didn’t mention the fire show till afterwards? That would be one way of preventing the scenario he was most worried about: a uniformed invasion of the Highgate assembly. Most likely they’d just send a car round, but then its occupants would get pelted with bottles so they’d call for backup and there’d be an ugly scene. He’d witnessed enough of that sort of confrontation in Notting Hill when some of the carnival parties carried it a bit too far and got the truncheons on their backs. Trouble is, he thought, most of the police don’t know how to handle a crowd situation. They panic, especially if the crowd has a bit of an exotic look to it, and the wild beast comes out on both sides. If that happened, nobody was going to find out anything.

  He decided evasive tactics were justified, so he threw the ball back in Steve Latham’s court. ‘The Suddens are doin a show this afternoon. Anything you specially want me to look out for?’

  Steve’s eyes narrowed. ‘You sure you should be going to a place like Highgate cemetery without backup? It’s a complete jungle in there and it attracts all the wackos in the business. You must have heard the stories. The vampire hunters have gone quiet since they locked up the ringleaders, but you never know when there might be a renewed outbreak.’ He shook his head. ‘Psychotic stuff, you know — one lot exhumed a corpse, cut off its head, dr
ove a stake through what was left of its chest cavity and left it sitting against a tree trunk. Not planning on witnessing anything like that, are you?’

  ‘I seriously doubt it. That’s not the Suddens’ style. They’re doing a concert, so I’m asking what you want to know.’

  ‘Just take photos,’ said Steve. ‘Lots of them.’

  *

  Zig was all geared up for the concert, her hair spattered with green and a black and white zigzag painted up the centre of her face, like a streak of lightning. She was wearing leather trousers and the rubber vest with the yellow splash across the front — so contrary to Sharon’s theory, she must have just been waiting for the right opportunity to show it off.

  Sharon was no competition. She had to wear a boiler suit and plimsolls because of her part in the show. But in her own way she was geared up. In her mind she’d been over and over the routine she’d been taught. Her nerves were on edge.

  It was Zig’s idea to get there early and find the underground route through the back part of the cemetery. She led the way along a path through the crazy jungle of creepers and through a gate into a crescent-shaped street lined with stone tombs.

  ‘Circle of Lebanon,’ she said. ‘There’s supposed to be an opening in here somewhere.’

  Sharon wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the prospect of going through another tunnel — especially one in which a lot of dead people were stacked. She lagged behind, staring at the tombs that lined the curved path, each with its identical door surmounted by a neat little triangular roof. She didn’t believe in ghosts but all the same she was getting a funny feeling that some weird crumpled face might poke out from one of the doorways and beckon.

  ‘Sharon!’ a voice hissed from behind her. She wheeled round. Zig.

  ‘What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?’

  ‘It’s a circle. You were going so slow I caught up with you. I found the way in.’

  Sharon got out her torch and followed Zig through the entrance to one of the tombs. Just inside the door there were steps leading into the darkness below where an immense quietness enveloped them. The sound of their feet on the soft ground seemed to come from a long way away, yet the earth pressed in close on both sides.

  As they walked together in silence, Sharon started to relax. The coolness and silence made her feel calm, calmer than she’d ever felt before. Funny that, when there were dead people lying in the earth either side of you and probably even just above your head. Now she was so close to them she didn’t feel scared any more, not a bit.

  The tunnel curved round then went upwards, with little steps cut into the ground every couple of feet. Here there was writing on the wall, but it looked quite different from the graffiti Sharon had seen in the World’s End tunnel. The words were carved into the smooth sides of the earth in neat, even letters like the words on a gravestone.

  FROM THE DENS OF NIGHT, CRYING:

  EMPIRE IS NO MORE!

  After that message someone had painted a swastika. A few yards further on they came to an elaborately moulded archway, with pillars either side and a triangular stone shape above it, like the ones over the tomb entrances outside. Inside the triangle was written:

  AND NOW THE LION & WOLF SHALL CEASE

  In the corners there were faces with staring eyes and lion mouths carved into the stone. Zig stopped, keeping the light of her torch directed upwards. ‘Sol,’ she said. ‘This is his work.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Sharon whispered. ‘I thought all this was really old.’ But now she looked more closely, she could see that the lines were fresh and clean, quite unlike those of the tombstone carvings they’d seen on the way through the cemetery.

  Zig reached up and traced the outline of one of the faces with her finger, then began to scratch at it until she pulled something away. She held it out in the palm of her hand — a piece of red string. ‘This is what he uses for edging. Remember? We found some before, on the railing.’

  Beyond the archway was a flight of steps that brought them to a square chamber lined with shelves — and on the shelves were coffins, all falling to bits so that you could see bony hands and feet through the rotten wood.

  ‘Holy shit!’ muttered Zig, moving in with her torch beam on the head and shoulders of a desiccated corpse that was spilling out of its box.

  At the farther end of the chamber was another flight of steps, surrounded by a lot of jumble that didn’t look as if it belonged to the residents. Amongst it was a fire extinguisher, a canister of kerosene and a glass jar labelled Van Helsing Stage Blood Capsules, with a picture of a drooling vampire. She recognised this as Flak’s gear.

  But whose was the plastic mac someone had thrown down the stairs? It had landed there like a dead bat, and when she kicked it aside, she saw there was something underneath. A little notebook with a spiral binding. She picked it up and was about to take a look when they heard the sound of footsteps above them and had to snap off their torches.

  *

  Aidan turned into Bacons Lane behind the cemetery, to see tribals spilling out from the back of a battered panel van that had just pulled up. There was quite a little collection of vehicles here, most of them probably borrowed or stolen for the occasion. Leaving the Vespa against a tree, he did a bit of scouting round, camera in hand, to get some points of orientation. To the left there was a rise in the ground and he could see a rounded grey roof above the greenery. He took some pictures, then turned back and found himself eyeball to eyeball with a wild stranger, a fox with a devilish stare and erect russet brush, frozen in his way. Beware of the resident demons, Aidan thought, and gave the creature a wide berth.

  He could hear snatches of human talk carried on the breeze, so he headed in that direction and had no difficulty finding the tribe. Their vertical hair, freshly treated with supplies of Crazy Colour that somebody had bought in bulk at the markets and sold at the pub last night for grossly inflated prices, was visible before he got within close range. He positioned himself so he could hear, but kept out of sight, though it was hardly a thrilling bit of eavesdropping. Yeah ... nah ... nuh ... well he doesn’t reckon it’s ... nuh-uh ... could have done with a bit of ... well he’s a tosser, isn’t he? He’s a sodding tosser. The last comment came across loud and clear.

  ‘Takes one to know one, boy,’ Aidan muttered. Trouble with this lot was they were a bunch of camp followers, waiting for someone to lead them into more interesting forms of destruction than they could find of their own accord. And the leaders?

  The question of whether the Suddens were going to turn up this time was answered a few seconds later by a violent outburst of screeching, like a flock of crows gone psycho, from somewhere in the trees ahead. A current of energy seemed to charge through the tribe still scattered through the wilderness of brush and ivy. They doubled their pace, converging in the direction of the noise.

  28

  He’s still in intensive care,’ said the clerk. ‘I’ll have to transfer you.’

  Briony looked at her watch. She’d already been transferred twice — from reception to patient enquiries, then to the registrar’s office. There were clicks on the line, and a brisk voice answered. ‘Royal Brompton, intensive care unit.’

  For the third time she asked about Macready.

  ‘Who am I speaking to?’ asked the nurse.

  ‘I’m Briony Williams, a colleague of his. I’d like to visit him this morning, if possible.’

  ‘Commander Macready’s still recovering from surgery, so he only has one visiting hour today, 3 to 4 pm.’

  ‘I’d like to see him privately. It’s in connection with an inquiry that is rather sensitive.’

  The voice switched from brisk to stern. ‘He’s recovering from surgery, Miss Williams. He can’t be disturbed by anything like that. Perhaps you’d like to make an appointment with him when he returns to work, in a few weeks.’

  Damn damn damn. She’d done this all wrong. ‘Would you be kind enough,’ she said in her own sternest professional
voice, ‘to tell him Detective Inspector Williams called, to wish him a speedy recovery.’ She hung up and stared at the phone, torn between leaving it alone in case Gareth should ring again, and calling Steve at his office — just to be sure he was okay and back in circulation.

  No. She would not phone Steve. He’d got her into enough trouble already. Anyway, he’d probably phone her soon enough. As if in response to her thought, the ring-tone started up and sent a jolt through her whole nervous system.

  ‘Inspector Williams?’ Macready’s voice. A little croaky, but unmistakable.

  ‘Sir. I came back as soon as I heard

  ‘You should not have done so. It was consoling to picture you running along a beach somewhere, out of harm’s way.’

  She expected this, and ignored it. ‘How are you, sir?’

  ‘Still in one piece, I’m pleased to report. And I have remarkably good accommodation here. Things have changed, Williams, since I was treated for tonsillitis in an Aberdeen children’s ward. I have a private room, with a telephone, and they have yet to threaten me with carbolic. I’m to be interviewed by the Hampstead CID at three, but I think we should talk. Come at two.’

  Briony stood up, realising that her back and shoulders were almost locked with tension. There was a sharp rat-a-tat on the front door — a police knock — but best to be cautious, all the same. She looked out of the window and saw Pavan’s car parked below.

  He was standing on the doorstep looking superb in a deep blue shirt, accompanied by Ken Keagan.

  ‘Briony!’ Pavan shook her hand warmly. ‘I hear you had a silent caller last night, 2.19 am.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She led the way up the stairs. ‘But why’s that part of your brief?’

  ‘It isn’t, but I was told about it, which is how I knew you were back. Following the attack on Macready, I’ve been asked to supervise a daily forensic check here. And you must be aware that you will have to find somewhere else to stay, temporarily. Could we sit down for a moment?’