by Simon Clark
‘Yes, like I said: I’m pushy and inquisitive. I’ll squeeze the truth out of you if I have to.’ She deliberately kept her tone light. Although she did crave to hear the facts behind the mosaic that had, indirectly, nearly cost Pel her life. The first course arrived, a light seafood salad. For a moment or two they chatted about the food as they squeezed lemon juice on to a delicious-looking assortment of fish.
Then Jack began talking in a matter-of-fact way. ‘These are the bare facts. Justice Murrain was born in 1700. He inherited the hall that his father had built, and the thousand acres of farmland that went with it. We still own what’s left – twenty acres of forest that we manage for timber and firewood. The Murrain family were highly respected, they treated their employees well. Until Justice Murrain came along, that is. There were rumours that in his teens he shot the local blacksmith because he didn’t care for the expression on the man’s face. Justice Murrain was evil. He was evil to animals, to servants, to his own family. There were rumours he suffocated his own father because he wanted to inherit the family property before he was thirty. Nothing could be proved. Criminal investigations were rudimentary back then. And if you could bribe the local magistrate, well …’ – Jack cut a blood-red tomato – ‘you could literally get away with murder.’ He continued briskly, ‘Justice Murrain craved wealth, so he turned the house into a “Bedlam” – an infirmary for the criminally insane. The authorities paid him well to make sure all the psychotics and violent crazies were taken out of society and put into his care. Then my ancestor really got down to work. He turned his mental patients into a private army. They guarded Murrain Hall. Nobody dared go within miles of the place. He sent squads of lunatics out to rob and murder travellers on the main highways. Not only did he keep their possessions he took possession of the corpses, then forced relatives to pay exorbitant burial fees. And because he’d corrupted the local magistrate he could spin some yarn to the authorities that the killings were the work of outlaws, and nothing to do with him. During the 1730s my ancestor was responsible for highway robbery, extortion, blackmail, kidnap, plus a huge protection racket that involved Justice Murrain’s gang of deranged men and women – they marched into town every market-day and forced families to hand over their cash. Anyone who complained would be beaten. If they tried to notify the authorities outside the area, the thugs would return to hang one of the family from the gallows in the market-square. Justice Murrain created a blanket of terror over Crowdale. Nobody dared speak out. He demanded more and more money from them, to the point the townspeople’s children began to suffer from starvation.’ He paused to regard a pink flake of salmon on his fork as he, no doubt, saw the reign of terror in his mind’s eye. ‘They say Justice Murrain became as mad as his army of psychotics. Progressively, he became more delusional. When his wife gave birth to their first son he thought she’d brought a rival into the world to destroy him – no doubt he recalled that he’d killed his own father. In a fit of rage he threw his wife to his henchmen. What the lunatics did to her you can imagine. Anyway, she died of her injuries. Justice Murrain hated his baby son. Loathed him so much, he cut off the thumb and forefinger of each hand; that way, he reasoned, the boy could never use a pistol to shoot his own father.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘I told you it was a hell of a story.’
Pel shivered. ‘It’s terrible enough what he did to Crowdale – no wonder they have issues with the Murrains – but the way he treated his own son? Even most tyrants protect their own children.’
‘Justice Murrain broke even that rule. To maim your own child is as evil as you can get. It breaks the laws of nature. Even animals will die to protect their own young. His treatment of his baby son is beyond my understanding anyway.’
‘Yet your family protect Justice Murrain’s portrait in the mausoleum.’
‘That’s covered by the final part of the story. In 1751 Justice Murrain presided over a private army, which he now called his Battle Men. By this time, he kept his son in a kennel with the dogs. I daresay, the dogs treated the boy a damn sight better than his own father. Then, at long last, the priest in Crowdale managed to smuggle a letter out to his bishop. The letter detailed Murrain’s crimes. Within hours a contingent of soldiers arrived at the hall to arrest my ancestor. Justice Murrain ordered his men to fire on the soldiers; when some of the king’s men were killed by musket-shot all hell broke loose. The soldiers were determined to avenge their comrades, so they set fire to the house, then bayoneted all of Murrain’s henchmen. As for the man himself, they say he rode out of the courtyard on a huge stallion, sabre in hand, and wearing a long black cloak that flapped out like the wings of a raven. He could have escaped, because the soldiers were on foot; however, he chose to ride three times around the church – widdershins they call it, if you circle a church in an anti-clockwise fashion. Something the superstitious never do, because it invokes the Devil, then he rode the horse back into the courtyard of the burning house, where the debris collapsed on him.’ He held out his hands. ‘And that was the end of Justice Murrain. Legend has it, his bones lie under the mosaic.’
‘The son? The boy with his forefingers and thumbs amputated?’
‘He survived to continue the bloodline. It was he, James Murrain, who eventually rebuilt the hall. At the same time, locals complained that they were being harassed by the ghosts of Justice Murrain and his thug army. So James Murrain had the mausoleum built. And using his own mutilated hands, just three fingers on each, he created the mosaic portrait of his own father. The fragments of tile, glass and pottery that make up the mosaic, like a jigsaw, came from the ruins of the original house that burnt down.’
‘So this portrait trapped the ghost of Justice Murrain and all the ghosts of the thugs who served him?’
‘That’s what James Murrain and the townspeople believed.’
‘And what your grandfather still believes?’
‘Each to his own.’ He pushed the plate aside.
‘But what do you believe, Jack?’
The man merely shrugged.
‘Jack, your grandfather is determined that you stay here to guard the mosaic, and to keep that lamp lit.’
‘That’s going to be immaterial, isn’t it? Either the sea will take the portrait, or your archeologist friends are going to uproot it for a museum.’
She held his gaze. ‘You still haven’t told me what you believe will happen when the mosaic is moved. Will your ancestor break free?’
At that precise moment the lights went out. The darkness absolute.
15
KERRY HERNE, CHIEF archeologist on the Murrain site dig, found it nigh impossible to stay away. So, alone, she patrolled the cliff-top, flashlight in hand, sweeping the beam back and forth to check for any more telltale cracks in the earth – those cracks that would alert her to another section of cliff marked for destruction.
A frost added daubs of white to the grass. Orange lines on the ground showed where Temple Central (as they had dubbed it) lay buried in the graveyard area.
‘I must be mad coming up here alone,’ she murmured, as she neared the cliff-edge. Surf roared across the beach below. Her face tingled with cold. There were times she stood up here and willed the sea not to rob her of the excavation site. When she did so, she felt as obsessive as old Mr Murrain. Both guarded the area as if it meant more to them than life. She glared at crumbling sections of cliff thinking, Please don’t fall. We need to dig into you tomorrow. There are wonderful artefacts here of huge historical importance. Other matters preyed on her mind, too. Had Pel got hold of Jack Murrain’s DNA sample yet? Would government officials be sympathetic to her plea that the cliffs be protected from the surf?
Kerry found herself following the line of the ‘spirit roads’ that she and Pel had marked out on the grass. In the gloom, she glimpsed centuries-old headstones. Some of which carried the name Murrain. The family’s roots here were deep. Very deep. Up ahead stood the mausoleum. Its oil lamp burned inside, casting a glow on to the frost-covered grass. At this t
ime of night the archeologists’ trenches resembled open graves – but what elongated graves they were. The graves of giants.
Wayward thoughts, but then this place has that effect on you. Kerry followed the line of the spirit road back through the graves to the cliffedge. Almost immediately a deep groaning sound began somewhere under her feet. ‘Oh, no, not again. Please no.’
The cliff-top formed a slab of dark earth in front of her. Beyond that, the twinkle of starlight on the sea. The ground shuddered. The pained groan rose in volume. Kerry directed the flashlight at parallel orange lines that ran right to the end of the cliff. They were moving. Slowly at first. Then faster … faster. With a lurch in her chest, she knew what would happen to those thirty square yards of once solid ground. Accompanied by a roar, many tons of soil and rock – and a section of spirit road, containing who knows how many precious ancient artefacts – tumbled into the surf below. She recalled Nat’s speculation about this complex of prehistoric earthworks. About it being a mechanism that controlled supernatural powers. At least that’s what the ancients had believed. Now another part of that mechanism had been destroyed.
Such a forlorn sense of loss rang through her. The coast was dying. Her precious archeological site was dying with it. She imagined how distraught the ancient men and women would be to see the destruction of their holy ground, those people who worshipped here thousands of years ago. They’d know that the temple that contained their gods, and the spirits of their ancestors, was being broken by the ocean. Such annihilation would be releasing entities, which should never ever be released. Those prehistoric people would wail at the impending chaos. The world of humans, and the world of ghosts, would be on a collision course. The results would be catastrophic.
16
HORACE SAT ON his straight-backed chair in the street again. Cold didn’t bother him. Nor did it worry Bobby, his imaginary friend, on the seat beside him. Both stared into the darkness.
Seven-foot Horace hadn’t developed as other children do. He had a talent for seeing things that other people couldn’t. Like his loyal friend, for instance. Lately Bobby had become badly frightened, and he’d uttered this ominous sentence: Shadows are doing what shadows shouldn’t. Horace liked to repeat the little fellow’s observation. Those twisty S-words tickled his tongue. Shadows are doing what shadows shouldn’t. They were, indeed. Shadows flitted along the line of houses. They floated through walls. They shot through roofs. He’d even seen them ghosting up through the rugs in his bedroom.
Then everyone, who knew Horace, knew that he saw lots of stuff that nobody else ever did. Like the time he ran to the harbour, yelling he could see pirate ships sailing toward the town. He’d witnessed foxes that walked on their hind legs in the supermarket. There were bats the size of cows living in the town-hall roof, according to Horace. His neighbour, Mr Brodrick, had been found dead under the Christmas tree ten years ago. Yet many a night Mr Brodrick would appear at his door to say to Horace, ‘Come into my house. Bring the little fellow. You can watch me stir my Christmas pudding. Then we can play hide and seek … in the dark … you’ll love that.’
Those things Horace saw all the time. Tonight, as the town-hall clock struck ten, he would be treated to an entirely different spectacle.
‘They’re coming,’ Horace told his imaginary friend. ‘They’re almost here.’ Horace’s heart pounded. He’d never felt as tense as this before. He could hardly breathe. ‘Bobby! They’re here!’
A profound sense of change crept into the world. The canyon formed by the row of houses at each side was deserted. Curtains were all drawn shut. Frost glinted on the tarmac. Then something strange happened. The darkness at the end of his street underwent a transformation. There was darkness still … but it pulsed blackly. As if the shadow of a heart throbbed there. A pulsating essence of blackness.
For a moment he was entirely alone apart from his virtual friend. Then he was not alone. Because walking majestically along the centre of the road came a figure. A tall figure in black made entirely of shadows. A figure with a mass of raven hair. A garment billowed around him until it resembled wings. And the man had such a cruel face. He walked proudly … pleased with himself … immensely pleased. And he moved with such dignity that it seemed he led a parade.
Horace’s heart pounded.
He watched the man in black approach. It was the crow man whom he’d glimpsed before. But this time he was no longer alone. Smoothly, like they were fish swimming through the sea, came more figures. Ghost men and women. Dozens of men and women. They possessed strange faces … with yawning mouths, and smiling mouths, and leering mouths, and mouths that were not human. They didn’t walk – they glided with fluid grace, either at street level, or along the rooftops of houses, or they dipped below the surface of the road only to re-emerge again. Horace recalled how dolphins swam. How they vanished below the sea before bursting forth once more. These shadow people weaved through road tar, as if it were no more solid than water. Some darted in and out through the walls of the houses. Lights flickered on and off.
The crow man approached. A smile played on his lips. His grey eyes locked on to Horace’s face.
The man pointed a long shadow finger at Horace’s chest. ‘I take him.’
Horace understood the brutality of being alone in the face of such danger. All those things he’d seen in the past – the cow-sized bats, the pirate ships, the shopping foxes – no longer seemed real. But the man in black did. So did his phantom army. All too real. All too frightening.
Horace tried to flee back home to his mother. But a movement from above caught his eye. The crow man had risen into the night sky. Then that shadow figure plunged downward right into the centre of Horace’s face.
When Horace opened the door to his home his expression had changed. The voice that came from his lips had altered, too. His diction had an unfamiliar precision. The tone: a gloating quality. ‘Mother. It’s me. It’s your loving boy. Mother, I’ve brought you a surprise.’ He closed the door behind him.
Later, neighbours told police about the screams they heard through the walls. Terrible, terrible screams.
TWO DAYS LEFT
1
THE CHIMES OF midnight from the town-hall clock mourned the death of the old day. A new one had begun as Jack walked her back to the house. After the power outage they’d dined by candlelight for a while in the Greek restaurant. Whilst they’d been there, Jack had popped into the bathroom to collect the DNA sample. This was simply achieved by scraping a Q-tip against his upper gum, then placing it into a test tube, which he sealed, and handed back to Pel.
Within twenty minutes or so of capturing that potentially valuable drop of body fluid, the power had been restored. Yet as they strolled along a chilly canyon, formed by the rows of houses, the lamps still kept dimming to a dull orange. Jack had confessed his ambition to travel. Yet she sensed that deeply woven into Jack’s thoughts were his grandfather’s longing that he continue the Murrain family tradition of protecting that mosaic in its mausoleum. And to keep the lamp burning there. They formed a trinity – lamp, mausoleum and mosaic. Their purpose to hold evil Justice’s Murrain’s ghost locked up tight in the ground. Or so Jacob believed.
A hundred yards away, police cars had gathered. Blue lights whirled. An ambulance moved off slowly from the parked vehicles. The ambulance driver didn’t appear to be in a hurry, suggesting either there was no real crisis, or more grimly, their patient was beyond a high-speed dash to the hospital.
The midnight drama had brought people out of their houses. One woman, clad in a towelling robe, stood on her doorstep as Jack and Pel walked by.
Without even bothering to check whether she knew them or not, the woman called out in an excited voice, ‘That lunatic down there … the one who always sits outdoors on the chair … has done his own mother … bashed out her brains on the kitchen floor. It’s time they put a rope round his neck … of course, hanging’s too good for him. They should put him in a room with …’ Her voice t
railed off. From that expression of excitement, all stirred up with moral outrage, her face morphed into a leer of utter delight. Beaming at them, she stepped back into the house.
‘Are your townsfolk always like this? Pel asked. ‘Does murder make them cheerful?’
The streetlamps dimmed again. Even the whirl of blue lights on the parked police cars became a gloomy purple.
Jack’s eyes gleamed. He suddenly appeared preoccupied.
She touched his arm. ‘Are you all right, Jack?’ There was an oddness about her surroundings now that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Shivers ran across her skin. Every few seconds she seemed to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. As if a shadow had skated past on a house wall. However, when she checked there’d be nothing there.
‘Jack? What’s wrong?’
He licked his lips as if the taste of his own skin was new to him. Then he studied his hands in the police cars’ pulsating blue lights. An expression of bafflement broke into a smile of wonderment. The man had seen something amazing. But what?
She didn’t like this now. A voice in her head begged her to run. Not to look back. Hell … to run until she was free of this crazy town. Because that’s what it was becoming.
A man dashed by them after a screeching cat. He’d armed himself with a Zimmer frame that he slashed through the air.
Seconds later, a heavily built man blundered out of the dark. He recognized Jack.
‘Oh, Murrain … you shouldn’t even show your face round here, y’ bastard. Nobody wants you in town. Get outa m’ way.’ The man intended to shove Jack aside as he stumbled drunkenly home.
Jack smoothly grabbed hold of the man then shoved his bloated face to the wall.
‘Lemme go,’ barked the drunk. ‘You want to mix it with me, eh?’