Friends of the Dusk

by Phil Rickman

  Not that any of it would help.

  Over lunch Jane said, ‘You going to tell me about Aisha Malik?’

  ‘I’ve never met her. Only listened to other people talking about her, and that can be misleading. I expect you can tell me a lot I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, not much, actually. But it might be confirmation of something.’

  Jane opened up her iPad, telling her about the Foxy Rowlestone Appreciation Society and the rather more adult Fang Forum.

  ‘Struck me as crazy, Mum, that series packing in after two books. Foxy was sitting on a fortune.’

  ‘Only half of Foxy was left with a functioning mind.’

  ‘So? From what you say, it’s the woman who knew how to write – I mean, for kids. If the old guy had already given her the basics, why couldn’t she write more on her own? Even if she carried on giving him a share for doing nothing.’

  ‘That’s a good point, actually. If I could find her.’

  ‘Still in the area, you think?’

  ‘Could be anywhere.’ Merrily scrolled down. ‘Carmilla. Presumably naming herself after Sheridan le Fanu’s female vampire.’

  ‘One of the first. Pre-Dracula.’

  ‘I used to have a copy.’

  ‘In your goth days.’

  ‘Didn’t last long. As I keep emphasizing.’

  I don’t know,’ Jane said. ‘Some people might say that becoming a priest, shamelessly wearing the black kit…’

  ‘Don’t start that again. This is the last, is it? “Wait for the dusk.”’

  ‘That’s when Carmilla seems to start taking her seriously.’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘Because she’s given authentic details of where she lives.’

  ‘Yeah, but for that to cut any ice, Jane, Carmilla would have to recognize it as authentic.’

  ‘I didn’t think of that. You’re right.’

  ‘And if it was common knowledge in vampire circles she could still be making it up. Anything else from Aisha?’

  ‘There are just hundreds and hundreds of posts, and most of them are complete drivel. However, I did find one other. There might be more, but you spend all day…’ Jane pulled over the pad and searched around. ‘There you go.’

  Aisha

  The blood is only the start. Symbolic of something much more powerful. I have a fulfilling relationship across the Divide that goes beyond the blood.

  ‘Mmm,’ Merrily said. ‘That’s a step forward, isn’t it? A fulfilling relationship across the Divide. With whom?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this. It’s on the Fang Forum so she doesn’t spell it out. If it was on the Foxy site, it would be more obvious. It could be mirroring the later situation between the girl in the book, Catherine, and Geraint, the blacksmith. The situation that seems to be hinted at in the second book, when Geraint apparently dies but returns – undead – to deal with the Summoner on his own level. Then I’m guessing we get kind of a Twilight situation where Geraint and Catherine might well develop an interesting relationship.’

  ‘Across the Divide.’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘What’s your feeling about that? Is it bollocks or is it reflecting something?’

  Jane put down her fork, gazing through the lower window at the green and mauve lichens on the churchyard wall.

  ‘I think she has a pretty vibrant fantasy life. I’d say inner life, but that might be pushing it. I keep thinking back to when I was doing the pagan thing out there.’

  ‘Courting the moon goddess.’

  The look Jane flashed her was momentarily about fear and… hurt?

  What?

  Then it was gone.

  ‘Does that…’ Jane’s voice was low and flat. ‘… equate with what you know?’

  ‘I was in her room. We’d gone from room to room. Nadya, her mother, was anxious she shouldn’t be involved in this because she said she was happy here, untroubled. But it seemed to me that if hers was the only room that wasn’t blessed…’

  ‘Then it would just become a natural focus for… whatever you’re dealing with?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly.’

  ‘It might even be driven in there.’

  ‘Made a horrible sense,’ Merrily said. Sometimes Jane seemed to have an instinctive grasp of deliverance logic. ‘I felt that was what Huw Owen would be saying if he knew. Anyway, we went through the Maliks’ part of the house – Islamic wall hangings and medical books, quite a plain bedroom, other rooms in the process of being sorted out. Aisha’s room – she wasn’t there.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘Don’t know. She goes for long walks. I’m surprised you didn’t see her.’

  Jane’s eyes flickered.

  ‘That might have been interesting. What was in her room?’

  ‘Usual things. And some less usual. The books… fantasy and horror. And in the wardrobe, amongst the usual, there were some dark, gothic clothes, rather medieval. You’ve been there.’

  ‘Not like you have.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. Another era. The thing is, where does she wear them? Does she hang out with other teen goths? Are there any nowadays?’

  ‘Apart from Jude Wall and his mates, who do it once a year for entirely commercial reasons.’

  ‘Is it cool any more?’

  Jane looked over the lichens again, thinking about it.

  ‘If she does have like-minded friends, it’s not immediately obvious on her Facebook page. Like, she has friends, but none of them seem to have followed her into the places she goes. The people on the Foxy site, there’s not much familiarity, not much taking the piss. I think she’s… a bit of a loner.’

  ‘Are you OK? The bruises?’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  But there was a problem, still. If you couldn’t spot a problem after nineteen years…

  ‘I’m going to see Selwyn Kindley-Pryce this afternoon.’

  ‘Wow,’ Jane said. ‘What’s your excuse?’

  ‘I’ll think of something. Huw thinks I need to sort this, quickly.’

  ‘In case the Bishop finds out. Because it’s not official. But if you’ve told Huw…’

  ‘Huw’s my friend, not my boss.’

  ‘And like, what kind of state’s the old guy going to be in by now?’

  ‘Mr Pryce? I suppose I’m hanging on to what I was told about him kind of vanishing into his own fantasy world. Maybe he’ll let me in.’

  ‘But that was years ago.’

  ‘Yes. I know. But the fact is, he’s the last living link to whatever might be happening at Cwmarrow. I don’t know. I’m covering all bases, as they say.’

  ‘Bit of a self-imposed ordeal, if you ask me.’

  ‘Not really.’ Merrily carried the dishes to the sink. ‘I’ve visited quite a few people with dementia. Prayed with them. It can be quite… Anyway, I have to be there for three.’’

  ‘Leave the washing up for me. And then you want me to go back into Aisha’s social media? Or I could message her, ask a few—’

  ‘No! Don’t go near her. Actually, if you have time…’

  ‘All the time in the world.’

  ‘Maybe you could see what you can find out about djinns.’

  ‘Like genies? Arabic elementals?’

  ‘See, you’re halfway there. I’ll go and get back quickly. Gales forecast for tonight.’

  ‘Just don’t catch his disease,’ Jane said.

  46

  Bloodline

  BLISS HAD A picture of Gordon Barclay-Hughes that was probably wrong – wispy beard and a pot belly, for some reason – but the voice fitted: speed-talk in one of those outer-London accents that seemed to have infected half the south-east.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Friends of the Dusk, that was a good name, that still resonates. But they always sound deeper than they turn out to be. This was dawn of the Internet, mate. Cranking away on dial-up, like the old cat’s whisker and crystal set days. Wireless again now – everything comes round. Crazy.’ />
  ‘Who started this, Gordon?’

  ‘The Dusk? It was just there. A few famous people, clever people, and they was all your mates. Virtual equality, man. Jim Turner – he was our mate.’

  ‘Where’s he these days?’

  ‘Gawd, I dunno. In the sack wiv some starlet? They prob’ly don’t say that any more, showing my age, Gary.’

  ‘Francis,’ Bliss said.

  ‘Bloody shame about Trissie. Had an email off of him the other day.’

  ‘Yeh, that’s why I’m calling.’

  ‘Course you are. Bit hyper today. Open up the shop, copper at the counter, you think, hello, here we are, more round the back. But, there you go, it was just the one, bearing sad news.’

  ‘To get back to Friends of the Dusk…’

  ‘Tell you how come I was a member, yeah? We had a book store, me and a lady – gone now, the way of all my ladies. Before I come to GD, this was – Glorious Devon. Luton, two year lease. We did fantasy books and comics, mainly, and we found there was a lot of interest in vampire stuff – niche market, but a big niche. Which was fine ’cos I always liked that stuff, partic’ly the classics.’

  ‘Contact, was there, between goth shops in the UK?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean, did you know one another? Like, did you ever come across Jerry Soffley?’

  ‘Jerry…’ Barclay-Hughes was silent for a moment. ‘He do the clobber as well? And the music? Still going?’

  ‘Yesterday I’d’ve been able to say he was. However—’

  ‘He was a character, Soffley.’

  ‘He was murdered last night,’ Bliss said.

  Sounds of a match being struck close to the phone.

  ‘You’re not winding me up or nothin’?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Gordon.’

  ‘Soffley and young Trissie?’

  ‘Any thoughts on that, Gordon?’

  ‘You thinking they might come after me? That’s what this is about?’

  ‘Why would you think that, Gordon?’

  ‘I dunno. Dunno why I said that. Shock, I s’pose.’

  ‘That the kind of thing the Friends of the Dusk might do?’

  ‘Naw! They was just… enthusiasts. Anoraks. No way…’ Pause, Bliss heard smoke being expelled. ‘I just looked it up on the Net about Trissie. Beaten to death? Bleedin’ ’ell. Whassis about? Soffley, I never met him, but he was well known in the trade. Not many total goth shops around. We used to haunt house-clearances. If we found anything dark, apart from books, we’d buy it, maybe flog it to Soffley, if it wasn’t too big for a carrier.’

  Bliss listened to a few more minutes of this stuff before asking about Jim Turner, namechecking the feature-length documentary film Karen had pointed out on Wikipedia, The Bloodline of Dracula.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, fact and fiction. It’s how I met him. You know that bit near the beginning, where all these—?’

  ‘I’ve not seen it, Gordon.’

  ‘Well, he shot that in our shop. The opening sequence, yeah? All the vampire books and the fans talking about it. We got these mates in top hats and capes and that. He was looking for people obsessed with the undead – what the film was gonna be about originally, and then some people he met, they put him onto the fact that it wasn’t just stories. And it wasn’t just Transylvania.’

  Wikipedia: Turner spent months tracking down so-called deviant burials, linked to vampire mythology, in the UK and Ireland.

  ‘And did he know Tristram Greenaway?’

  ‘He’d’ve met him, yeah. Maybe same day I met him. We was at a party at Selwyn’s place. He was wiv this gorgeous lady who wrote the books wiv him. I say it was a party, it was a conference, but it was fun. I think that was when it started.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Friends of the Dusk.’

  ‘Gordon…’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Could you tell me, in like baby-words, exactly what Friends of the Dusk is… or was?’

  ‘Well, it was… the dusk. The edge of night. They was out on the edge.’ Pause. ‘What do you know about vampires in Britain?’

  ‘Norra lot, but, strangely, more than I did.’

  ‘You ask people which part of England has to do wiv vampires they’ll tell you Whitby in Yorkshire, right, ’cos that was where Count Dracula landed? Except he didn’t, did he? On account of Dracula didn’t bleedin’ exist. He was made up, right?’

  ‘Yeh, I knew that.’

  ‘But what if we’re missing the point. What if we got better vampire stories on our own doorstep? Which is what Selwyn was saying.’

  ‘Who’s Selwyn?’

  ‘I thought you knew. Selwyn Kindley-Pryce was one of the biggest experts in the field. I don’t mean like me, I mean proper experts, university guys. Selwyn would tell you it ain’t all about fangs and stakes through the heart, garlic, all that shit, and it ain’t about Transylvania. The first known vampires were probably British.’

  ‘Are we supposed to be proud of that, Gordon?’

  ‘Part of our heritage, mate. As celebrated by the Friends of the Dusk.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘All sorts of activities. There’d be like weekend festivals at Selwyn’s place – amazing place, way out down by Wales, I’d never find it now. Caravans there and yurts and all that, or you could bring your own tent, and there’d be music and lectures and… all a bit hazy. Should I be telling you about this?’

  ‘I’m not drug squad, Gordon. And me own memory’s a bit selective, this being a murder inquiry.’

  ‘Yeah. Right. Thanks. So that’s why it’s all a bit…’

  ‘Inexact?’

  ‘’Sackly…’

  ‘Plenty of gear circulating at this festival.’

  ‘Look. I dunno. Might just’ve been me. I didn’t make any purchases there. Usually brought my own. It was all a bit posh, otherwise. One or two titled people – I’m sure I didn’t imagine that. Faces I thought I recognized. My lady, who was wiv me, said one bloke used to be in the government.’

  ‘You still in touch with your lady?’

  ‘That was a couple of ladies ago. Don’t even know if she’s still alive, mate. She was doing smack, last I heard.’

  ‘But Tristram Greenaway was definitely there.’

  ‘Trissie? Yeah, yeah, he was always there. He was just a kid when it started, a baby goth, like a lot of them.’

  ‘So this was before he was an archaeologist.’

  ‘Oh yeah, yeah. I think.’

  ‘And what was your specific reason for being there, Gordon?’

  ‘Well, I had this Internet magazine – one of the first. A magazine of the Undead. Early days of the Net. We was quite exclusive, subscribers all over the planet. We could spread the word.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘And collect information. About vampire lore. Selwyn was compiling material for a book. Would’ve been a terrific book if his mind had held out.’

  ‘He was doing drugs, too?’

  ‘Nah, he just drank a lot of red wine, but… no, his mind was moving out, last I heard. Jim Turner, he was gonna make a documentary, a sequel to The Bloodline of Dracula only better… bigger. That never happened either.’

  ‘Tristram Greenaway, was he involved?’

  ‘Trissie… he was studying wiv Selwyn and helping out in return. He knew his way around. And I think he was also working for Jim Turner.’

  ‘As what?’

  ‘I dunno, gopher? Little errands. He’d just walk around like he belonged. I don’t mean cocky, it was just fascinating for him, obviously, hanging out where it all started.’

  ‘Friends of the Dusk.’

  ‘What?’

  Bliss shut his eyes, trying to compose a question that might extract a simple answer.

  ‘I don’t think you’re getting this, are you?’ Barclay-Hughes said. ‘Selwyn figured he was living in the actual place where this vampire hung out.’

  ‘Which vampire?’

  ‘The first vampire
. Centuries before Dracula – who didn’t, of course, exist. Selwyn could’ve cleaned up. Made some serious money out of tourism and that. But he wasn’t interested. He was a scholar. He just wanted to know.’

  ‘Spell his name for me, would you, Gordon? If you can manage that.’

  He didn’t trust people who reckoned drugs had done for their memories. A good and unbreakable excuse.

  When Bliss brought Karen and Vaynor into his office the sun had been overlaid by a sky like slate, but he didn’t put any lights on. They could still do his head in, lights.

  Maybe he was a latent vampire.

  Vaynor asked him why he was smiling; Bliss said never mind.

  ‘All right, listen up, kiddies. From what I’ve pieced together from Gordon, Friends of the Dusk is, or was, a group of nutters interested in exploring the roots of vampirism in this country.’

  ‘They’re not nutters,’ Vaynor said. ‘I’ve been doing some more research on deviant burials found quite recently – early medieval, Anglo-Saxon. One, in Nottinghamshire, where the body was held down by metal spikes, one through the heart. In Ireland, where several have been discovered, one skull had a stone wedged in its mouth, so big it almost dislocated the jaw. All thought to be the graves of people considered to be malevolent or dangerous to the community. The word vampire used several times – in the sense of declining to stay dead rather than imbibing the blood of the living. But, sure, vampire’s a good word – even archaeologists recognize that.’

  Bliss thought about this.

  ‘So we’re back to where we started, and it’s making more sense. Greenaway is called out by Cooper to assist with a newly exposed old corpse on Castle Green. He spots the obvious. He’s already pissed off, thinks he’s been dumped on again, misled by Cooper, so he acts on impulse, lifts the skull. Because he knows – or used to know – people who’d love to meet Steve.’

  ‘Friends of the Dusk,’ Karen said. ‘Greenaway was a member?’

  ‘Greenaway was linked with them from when he was a young lad. A baby goth, as Gordon calls him. Good-looking, personable kid. Gets in with this group – coterie – formed around a bloke Gordon says was a scholar, Selwyn Kindley-Pryce, who lives somewhere… out towards Wales. Let’s find out who he is. Or was. He held small cultural festivals Gordon says were a bit posh. Surely, some of us ought to know about this. Especially those of us who like to describe themselves as local.’