by Rhys Bowen
He plunged down the other side of the slope, his feet swishing through unseen bracken, stumbling over tree roots, and tearing through gorse bushes. Then he heard the voice. It was colder and deadlier than ever before, but he recognized it and made for it through the darkness.
“I have cast the circle. The seen and the unseen are now one. Now I call the four quarters. I call the East, quarter of the air. I call all winged things, inhabitants of the air, to our circle. Come birds, come angels, be one with us. And I offer up the blade, tool of the East.”
The voice echoed through the woodlands. Still there was no fire and Evan could only push on, guided by the voice.
“I call the North, quarter of the Earth, quarter of winter, midnight, darkness, and death. I invite anything that walks on the earth, two legged, four legged, to join us. I invite rocks, stones, leaves, branches to be one with our circle, one with us, and I offer up the sacred stone to be part of our ceremony.
“I call the West, quarter of water. Come tides, come dolphins and whales and fishes. Be one with us. And I place in the center of the circle the cauldron, tool of the West.”
The cold, clear voice rose in pitch. “And last I call the South, quarter of fire, quarter of today’s feast. Come lions, come dragons, salamanders and be with us. Be one with us. Be one with us as we make the new fire. Fire that purifies and cleanses and strengthens.
“I take the flint and I light the new fire.”
Suddenly a glow appeared in front of Evan and he could hear the crackling as the bonfire came to life.
“Twin fires for Beltane—for Calan Mai. Whoever passes between the two fires will be purified and made fruitful for the coming year.
“I stand at the middle of the cone of power. We are all one in the cone of power and our power rises to be one with the power of the universe. A bridge has been made between natural and supernatural, between human and divine.
“This is Calan Mai—time of new plantings, new fruitfulness, and young womanhood. Tonight is the festival of fire—the union of the Goddess with the Horned God. I call on them to come down among us and accept our sacrifice, just as our ancestors sacrificed to them back until the dawn of time.”
Evan was close enough to see them now—a group of shadowy figures in white robes stood around twin bonfires. Between them there was something on a pole. It looked like a large basket, but as he came closer he saw that it was fashioned in the shape of a crude human. The central figure, who had to be Rhiannon although she was hooded and robed, plunged a torch into the fire, then held it up above her head. She threw back her hood. She was wearing a torque around her neck, which shone in the firelight.
“Accept our sacrifice!” she intoned. “Cleanse your people. Make us fruitful. Let our religion be fruitful and grow and prosper. We give you what is living and perfect. Take it. Make it yours!”
Evan, watching in horror as he ran, didn’t see the tree root until too late. He went sprawling, feeling the scratches on his hands and face as he went into the gorse. He staggered to his feet again just in time to see the Wicker Man go up in flames. An unearthly scream came from it.
With a great cry “No!” Evan pushed aside robed figures, threw himself into the circle, and knocked the burning wicker structure to the ground. It crashed down from its pole, scattering sparks. As he tried to put out the fire with his bare hands, he heard a horrified voice shouting, “Evan! What are you doing? Now you’ve ruined everything!”
Betsy, robed like the other figures, stood behind him, holding a chalice in her hands.
Chapter 23
The next morning Betsy went to work as usual at the Sacred Grove. It had taken a lot of courage to go there again after Bethan’s death, but if Evan was being so clueless, she decided, then somebody ought to be on the spot, solving things. His disruption of the ceremony last night had been the one funny incident in a series of terrible, tense days. Of course, it hadn’t been funny at the time. She had been really embarrassed and Rhiannon had been furious.
“You have spoiled the whole atmosphere of our ceremony,” she had yelled at him. “You have driven away the gods! What on earth put it into your head that I would consider using a human sacrifice? If you had read my book, you would have known that Druids only resorted to human sacrifices in the most extreme circumstances. And since we are not in the middle of war, plaque, or famine, I hardly think that now would be an appropriate time.”
Evan had apologized, of course. He was obviously embarrassed about the whole thing. In fact, it was lucky that he’d discovered that Rhiannon had put a live rabbit into the wicker cage. That gave him grounds to cite her for cruelty to animals, which made him feel a little better and at least gave him an excuse for his action.
Now that she looked back on it, Betsy was rather flattered that Evan had been willing to risk so much to rescue her. It proved that he did care, after all. Not every girl had a champion who was willing to dash into a fire for her. He’d got nasty burns on his hands and would be off work for a few days for his trouble. All the more reason for Betsy to do some snooping of her own at the Sacred Grove.
One of the conclusions she had reached was that Bethan’s death was not an accident. If the door had merely stuck, then how could she, Betsy, have wrenched it open after a few tugs? Bethan was bigger and stronger than she was. Why couldn’t she have pushed it open? She decided to go down to the spa building and take a look for herself. The actual spa area was cordoned off with yellow police tape. That was good. It meant that the police weren’t treating this as an accident either.
Betsy started looking around outside the building. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but there was no lock on the steam room door. Something had to have been used to prevent it from opening. After several minutes of looking she found something promising. In the flower bed across from the spa building, she found a wedge-shaped sliver of wood. It wasn’t large, but it might have been enough to slip under the door. Carefully she picked it up and put it into her overall pocket.
“What are you doing there, Betsy?”
A voice behind her made her jump with fright. Lady Annabel and Mrs. Roberts were coming down the steps together. Lady Annabel was looking at her suspiciously.
“I—I saw a weed in the rose bed,” Betsy stammered. “I thought I’d better pull it out.”
“That’s why we employ gardeners,” Lady Annabel said coldly. “Your job is to help out in the buildings. Please leave the grounds-keeping to the professionals.”
The two women sailed past Betsy. With her heart thumping she went on up the steps. She was so intent in getting to the safety of the kitchen that she almost ran past Michael without noticing him.
“Hey there!” he greeted her. “What’s wrong? You look terrible. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Don’t tell me there are ghosts here too. That’s all we’re lacking.”
“No. It’s just that my nerves are on edge,” Betsy said. “I keep thinking about poor Bethan.”
“You too, eh?”
Betsy nodded. “Do you really think it was an accident, Michael?” she asked cautiously. She had promised Evan to trust nobody but she had to talk to someone.
Michael looked surprised. “She got trapped by a door that sticks, Betsy.” Then a wave of suspicion spread across his face. “Wait a second. You don’t think that her death had anything to do with …” He glanced around uneasily.
“I don’t know what to think,” Betsy said. Her fingers closed around the piece of wood in her pocket. Better wait until she could show it to Evan before she made any claims. “This place is beginning to give me the willies,” she added.
“Me too.” Michael lowered his voice. “You can’t help wondering who’s next, can you?”
“Don’t say that.” Betsy shivered.
“Look here, Betsy.” Michael swallowed hard. “I’m not going to be here this afternoon. Can you go home early today? I don’t like to think of leaving you here when I can’t keep an eye on you.”
“Yes,
maybe I will try to get off early today. Thanks.” She gave him a shy smile.
“Great.” He smiled back. “Promise me you’ll be careful. I’m off sailing, you see. A group of friends from Porthmadog and I sail together every Wednesday, and we use my boat, so I can’t let them down—” He paused. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to come with us, would you? It’s quite fun. We usually bring food and have a picnic.”
“I’d love to,” Betsy said. “I’ve never been sailing.”
“Haven’t you? It’s one of the things I live for.” He smiled at her shyly. “See you around four then. Down at the dock.”
Evan lay on his bed, unable to sleep. For one thing his hands were hurting him. The hospital had dressed them for him and given him painkillers but they still throbbed. But the hurt was nothing compared to the turmoil that was going through his head. He had made such a fool of himself tonight. How could he have got things so wrong? Now he wouldn’t have another chance to find the real killer at the Sacred Grove. The doctor had said he wasn’t to return to work until his hands had healed. So he was stuck home alone, in a barely furnished, cold, and bleak cottage, with more than enough time to brood and worry. And to top everything else he hadn’t had a chance to see Bronwen. By the time he had reached her hospital ward, visiting hours were over and the starchy sister wouldn’t listen. “No exceptions,” she said frostily. “The young lady needs her sleep. You’ll just have to come back tomorrow.”
So another night of worrying about Bronwen and whether or not she would forgive him. The sister wouldn’t even give him a phone number so that he could talk to her.
“The nearest phone is out in the corridor and I’m not having her standing out there, getting cold. I’ve said you can see her in the morning.”
Sleep was impossible, so Evan got up and went downstairs to make himself a cup of tea. A beer would have been better, but he hadn’t got around to stocking beer in his pint-sized refrigerator yet. How could he have read all the signs so wrongly? It made such sense that Rhiannon had killed Randy Wunderlich. She had Chief Inspector Hughes’s favorite m words—means and motive. It was just possible, he decided, that he hadn’t got it wrong after all. Maybe Rhiannon’s intention had been to get rid of Betsy as the sacrifice last night, but with all the attention and the protesters at the gate, she had changed her mind at the last minute. Which meant that Betsy could still be in danger. If he wasn’t working, the least he could do would be to go down to the Grove and let them know that he was keeping an eye on her.
Let’s start at square one again, he said to himself. Let’s get back to the facts.
Fact one: Randy Wunderlich was killed. Emmy Court admitted to her part in the hoax, but she said she didn’t kill him. The person who killed him must have overheard enough of the plot to know that Randy would be hiding out in the cave. That could have been any of them, of course. They all disliked him, except for his wife. Most of them had the means, too—except it would need to be someone strong enough to drag his body from one cave to another.
Fact two: Bethan was killed in the steam room. Why? Obviously because she knew something about Randy’s killer. She had seen something and, not being the brightest girl, it had taken her a while to put two and two together.
Had the killer also meant to kill Betsy? he wondered. If she hadn’t been rescued, would it have been too late for her too? He suspected that Betsy had been a trial run—to see if being locked in the steam room with the steam full on really could kill somebody. And also to set up the premise that the steam room door stuck.
Another fact struck him: Bethan was the only one who remembered anything about Rebecca. It was ironic that she was killed just before Rebecca’s parents arrived. Could Rebecca’s disappearance somehow be tied to Randy’s death? How? Something had brought her to the Sacred Grove and that something was to do with Druids—which brought him back to Rhiannon again.
Surely somebody in Oxford must have known Rebecca. You didn’t spend a whole term in a place without making any mark. He took a big gulp of tea and came to a conclusion. If he wasn’t allowed to work, he would drive to Oxford and ask some questions for himself. He wasn’t supposed to drive, but he couldn’t see that holding a steering wheel would make him feel worse than he already did. It took him a while to get dressed—he found it hard to negotiate buttons and zippers with his sore and bandaged fingers—but he left the house as the first streaks of dawn appeared in the eastern sky.
Oxford was just coming into full morning bustle as Evan drove into the city center, past the grand yellow sandstone buildings and the ancient spires. The streets were clogged with students on bicycles, their black gowns flying out behind them, making them look like flocks of penguins. He had never been there before and marveled at how quaint it still was, like a scene from an old film, then felt a pang of regret that he had never had the chance to experience any of this. He parked and got out, savoring the scene. Two serious young women, piles of books in their arms, their gowns flapping out as they walked, passed him. “Are you going to the OUDs thing tonight?” one asked.
“I can’t. I’ve got Stebbins for a Greats tutorial in the morning and I haven’t prepared a thing.”
It was like visiting a different world. He remembered then that Bronwen had once been one of those young women—not here in Oxford but in rival Cambridge. He imagined life would be pretty much the same in both places. The thought of Bronwen generated pangs of guilt and alarm. What would she think if he didn’t show up this morning? He’d have to make sure he was back in time to see her this evening or she’d think he’d given up on her.
He had stopped at a garage just outside of the city to consult a telephone book and get directions to the AIAO. It turned out to be on a ring road at the edge of the city in a building not at all like the old sandstone colleges—all modern concrete and glass. The receptionist looked at him suspiciously and he had to produce his warrant card before she would take him to the institute director. The director was a typical American and very friendly. He went to shake Evan’s hand and Evan only managed to draw it away just in time, explaining about the burns.
“I guess you’ve chosen a tough profession,” the director said. He listened to Evan’s story, checked the records, then shook his head. He didn’t remember that particular student personally but Evan was welcome to talk to her course directors. Half an hour later he was back in the street, not having learned anything. The faculty members he had spoken to couldn’t even put a face to her name. They handled so many students that they remembered very few of them. And there were no students remaining from the fall program. Sorry they couldn’t be of more help.
They did direct him to the hostel where Rebecca had lived. It was a large and rather ugly Victorian on the Banbury Road. It was called the Laurels, although any bushes in the front garden had been paved over to make a parking area. Evan spoke to the hostel administrator, a no-nonsense, middle-aged woman. She remembered the name. Quiet girl. Wasn’t in any kind of trouble. But everyone would have gone now who remembered her, apart from the cleaning staff. He could talk to the maids if he liked, but they usually cleaned during the morning when the students weren’t around.
“What about her violin?” Evan asked, with sudden inspiration. “Did you ever get complaints about her practicing her violin?”
The woman wrinkled her brow. “I don’t remember any violin. She can’t have played it here. We do occasionally get students who play the piano in the common room, but I don’t recall any violin practice going on.”
That was odd, Evan thought. Her parents had stressed that she loved her violin. Could she have gone a whole term without playing it? Which had to mean that she played it somewhere else. He got back in the car and drove back to the city center. At the student union building he stood studying the overflowing notice board. Chess club match against Moscow University, rowing eights, drama club auditions …
“Is there a music club or an orchestra?” Evan stopped a young man who was looking for an inch of spa
ce to pin another notice to the board.
“OUMS,” the boy said. Then, as Evan looked puzzled: “Oxford University Music Society. They’re the ones who put on concerts. Is that what you mean, or do you mean pop music?”
“No, they’d be the one I’m looking for,” Evan said. “Any idea how I could contact them?”
“Ask at the office. They’d have the yearbook with a list of the society officers.”
Evan did as suggested. A serious-looking young Indian girl peeked at him from beneath a veil of long dark hair. “If you’re interested in joining, why don’t you give them a buzz and find out when the next meeting is?” she suggested in a flat southern counties voice polished with overtones of a good education.
“I’m not interested in joining. I’m a police officer and I need to talk to them about a missing girl.”
The mane of hair was shaken back so that Evan saw two kohl-edged dark eyes. “Katherine Sparks, you mean? But that was ages ago. I thought they’d found her remains at last, haven’t they?”
“Katherine Sparks?” Evan was confused.
“Yes, you said the girl who was missing, so I thought you meant her. LMH Student, disappeared last year, didn’t she, and they never found her. I’m not sure, but I think I read recently that remains on the south coast had been identified as hers. She’s not the girl you’re asking about?”
“No. This one was an American exchange student—not officially part of the university.”
“Oh. American.” She paused for a moment. “Well, I don’t know where you’d contact any of these people during the day. Some of them might go back to college to eat lunch in the refectory if they’re not too far away, but most of us just grab fast food these days. If I were you, I’d leave a note with one of their college porters and have them call you.”