by Guy N Smith
Hopwas was deserted, a feeling that everybody had just packed up and left. Because of the Sucking Pit.
Grafton licked his lips, still had that feeling of being watched, empty windows eyes that saw and hated. Minworth's large Victorian dwelling knitted its upper storey bow windows into a frown. Go away. Like it was hiding a dark secret.
Ralph Grafton pushed open the gate, saw the Maestro standing silently on the drive. Somebody had to be at home.
Sensing that something was wrong. Of course it was, a fuck of a lot had gone wrong these last few days. They had to be put right and Claude Minworth had to be forced into doing that. Right away.
Grafton walked up to the front door, had a sudden instinctive change of mind within a few feet of it, altered course and followed the flagged path round the side of the house, lifted the latch on the wicker gate. Stealth now, glancing around, an uneasiness dictating his movements.
He was about to knock on the back door; instead his fingers rested on the handle, pushed it slowly down, eased the door open a few inches. Listening. An electric clock was humming somewhere, nothing else.
He stepped over the threshold, experienced the guilt of a housebreaker. His flesh began to creep the same way that it had done back in his own house only a short time ago. With an effort he pulled himself together, moved out through the adjoining door into the hall. I couldn't make anybody hear so I came inside for a look. Shit, he didn't need to make any excuses, it was Minworth who had to crawl.
Suddenly Grafton wrinkled his nose, smelled a faint unpleasant odour, a stench that was vaguely familiar.
Then he recognised it and the perspiration on his body turned instantly cold.
The smell of death.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chris Latimer stirred, began to surface from an extremely pleasant dream, one that was already fading with waking like an early morning mist being dispersed by sunlight. He did not open his eyes immediately, tried to grasp at the vanishing dream but it wafted away, gone for ever. He was vaguely aware that he had an erection, a sensation similar to the tantalisations of early puberty, thrilling but frustrating, things beyond your control happening to you.
And then he saw Pamela, stared in shocked amazement. She was kneeling up, stark naked, her slim perfectly proportioned figure trembling slightly, her soft red lips parted in a smile that had his pulses beginning to race. Her flushed expression was one of lust, a desperation for mating like some female animal species on heat. Eyes that devoured him, slim fingers reaching for his clothing, ripping at buttons, not caring if she snapped the threads. Gone was her naivety as though it had been but a mask, a few hours sleep turning her into a woman who craved for uninhibited sexual pleasures.
Or was there a more sinister underlying reason for this startling transformation?
The moment he felt her touch he didn't care; didn't care why she did it as long as she did. Fervently she tugged at his jeans and he lifted up the lower half of his body so that she could drag them off; a combined effort to tug his shirt over his head. Then she was falling on him, crushing her lips to his firm flesh, her tongue tracing a damp path downwards, finding what she sought and giving a sigh of relief and pleasure. Latimer tensed, almost cried out aloud at the sharpness of her teeth, the way they scraped and bit in their eagerness, her lips now like a limpet, a suction pad that had him squirming. A few hours earlier they had been just very good friends, now they were passionate lovers and he was a willing slave to her desires. She didn't want him to do anything, she would do it all.
She came off him, looked up. Another grin of carnal lust, squeezing and rubbing him as she hoisted herself astride him, laughing aloud with sheer delight. Then he felt warm moistness swallowing him up and knew that they were coupled, her stance reminiscent of a jockey on a large racehorse that required the utmost in human physical effort to obtain the maximum performance from the beast. Leaning forward so that her firm breasts were tantalisingly within his reach, then jerking herself back just as his hands came up. From a fast canter into a gallop, mount and rider flecked with sweat, breathless, twisting one way then the other. Faster, faster, something had to give soon.
Chris Latimer hit his orgasm, bucked wildly as though trying to dislodge the girl who rode him but her fingers gripped him, cruelly raking his flesh with sharp nails, her expression one of sheer lust as she gyrated, pushed downwards to meet his upward thrusts. Exploding violently in unison, the beast of burden urged towards even greater limits.
Pamela was slowing, breathless, and that was when he pulled her down on to him, held her struggling climaxing body against his own. One brief moment of nostalgia, a flash of his memory like the lens of a camera showing him a picture and then obliterating it as though it should never have been disclosed. Jenny Lawson; the sexual urge that had obsessed her at the time of her possession and how it had led to a parting of their ways; with a finale of violent death for the nymph who had been returned to the depths of the Sucking Pit. [ii] Fear checked Latimer's euphoria, had him stiffening and wanting to push Pamela from him, almost yelling at her ‘for Christ's sake, they've got at you too!’
She sobbed audibly, went limp, pressed her face to his chest so that he could not see her expression. Two spent lovers, sapped by the fire within them that had burned them out, their exhaustion returning to claim them.
Perhaps they slept or just dozed. Chris was not sure except that when he opened his eyes again the sunlight in the room was much brighter. And his headache had gone. Pamela still lay across him and he could tell by her breathing that she was awake.
‘I'm sorry.’ Her voice was a whisper when it came, she might even have been crying. ‘Oh God, I'm sorry, Chris. Will you forgive me?’
‘For what?’
‘For what I did. Oh Chris, I don't know what came over me. How can I ever look you in the face again?’
‘Just by lifting your head up.’
She raised her head and he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed, her even white teeth biting on a trembling lower lip, blushing deeper than he had ever seen her blush before.
‘I'm no better than a common tart,’ she said. ‘Honest, I've never done anything like that in my life before.’
‘I thought you'd been married.’
‘Yes but Dave and I never did … things like that!’
‘And if you had done you'd probably still be married.’ He smiled, squeezed her hand. ‘And I'm glad you aren't.’ His lips went in search of hers, found them.
‘I came over all strange,’ she went on. ‘I'd gone to my room when I got this urge. I hadn't given much thought to sex for months but suddenly I couldn't do without it any longer. I came to your room just for that,’ she stammered and added. ‘well … not quite just for that.’
He laughed. ‘And now you've broken the ice maybe we won't have to sleep in separate rooms any more.’
She clutched at him, pulled him close. ‘All the same, Chris, it was frightening the way the feeling came on me. No warning. I do believe that … that I'd've gone out and found a man, any man, if you hadn't been here! I'm glad you were.’
He closed his eyes so that she would not see the flicker of fear in them. Pamela would need watching carefully. He could not afford to let her out of his sight. Soon he must confront the evil powers which had come up out of the Pit, somehow find a way to destroy them before it was too late.
‘We'd better make a move.’ She extricated herself from his embrace. ‘It's after midday and I can hear the others moving about downstairs.’
Samantha was busily making up a salad in the kitchen, Carl checking through a list of country and western songs, mentally preparing himself for the coming evening. Both of them looked refreshed as though they had forgotten the events of a few hours ago. Except that nobody could forget anything like that, ever!
‘At least it's a dance tonight.’ Carl leaned back in his chair. ‘Concerts frustrate both audience and performer, as though you're being prevented from doing something that your body is screami
ng out for. It's just a village hop, you don't have to come along.’
‘We're all going,’ Latimer said. ‘In fact, for the time being we're an inseparable foursome.’
‘I think you're making too much of this morning,’ the singer snapped, his mood suddenly changing. ‘I guess it was delayed shock from what happened the other night. I've got it out of my system now. I'll be OK. Anyway, there's no harm done.’
Latimer was watching the other closely, noted a fleeting expression in those eyes that came and went, a look that reminded him of an animal in a zoo; not tamed, just caged.
‘I'm going to call on Grafton after lunch,’ Chris announced. ‘Pamela's coming along with me. You two are invited as well.’
‘Carl ought not to go back … there! Samantha's reply was defiant, not turning round from the sink.
‘We don't go near the Pit,’ Chris lowered himself into a chair. ‘We can get to the big house through the churchyard. Ten minutes' walk at the most.’
‘Whatever do you want to see Grafton for?’ Pamela asked.
‘Because indirectly he's responsible for everything that's happened these past few days,’ Latimer said. ‘Maybe somehow through him we can get at the evil forces.’
‘Poppycock.’ Wickers pulled a plate of salad towards him. ‘You two can go if you like but Sam and I are staying here. I've got to run through a few of the songs for tonight.’
Latimer glanced towards Samantha but she dropped her gaze. This time she was not making any mute promises. Like Carl, she was becoming sceptical of the legend. They had all had a bad experience and it had played on their nerves. Nothing more.
Pamela linked her arm through Latimer's as they crossed the churchyard. A depressing place on a hot day, a place of the dead. The sooner everybody came to terms with cremation, the better: there would be more land available that way and perhaps beautiful tracts of countryside such as Hopwas Wood had once been would be left alone.
She was tense, uneasy again. It was stupid to return here after what had already happened. Pointless, too. But she wasn't letting Chris out of her sight. Thank God he hadn't been angry about what she had done. Apart from the way that irresistible urge had come upon her, it was the most thrilling experience of her life and the erogenous zones in her body still tingled at the memory, vibrating like a cast-off violin which had been unexpectedly picked up and played by an expert musician. Only once before in her life had she had an experience resembling anything like that. She'd been fourteen at the time, doting parents ensuring that her upbringing was sheltered, protecting her. Dire warnings about what would happen if she ‘touched’ herself. Temptation, curiosity; one night both got the better of her. Straying nervous fingers had brought electrifying sensations, had her convulsing frenziedly in the bed. And afterwards the guilt had nearly driven her out of her mind. Just like today. Except that her misguided parents had been wrong and there was no evil in what she had done, simply yielded to perfectly natural adolescent desires. In which case there was no harm in what had happened between herself and Chris Latimer. At least, he didn't appear to think so. Looking at it that way made her feel easier.
They had to negotiate a barbed wire fence, clamber over the long grass of the cemetery into the bare sand, step round yawning holes where trees had been dragged out by their roots leaving ugly abrasions which would remain unless they were filled in.
Now the sand was powdery like the promenade end of a beach which only very high tides reached. The incline was becoming steeper, slowing them down.
‘The big house is in the middle of those rhododendrons and pines.’ Latimer pointed up ahead. ‘The official route for callers is the hard track which branches off from the Lady Walk.’
‘So we're trespassing.’
‘Technically, yes,’ he replied. ‘Just like we were this morning.’ He wished he hadn't said that; he was aware of Pamela's tenseness, her grip on his arm tightening.
They took the path through the rhododendrons, overhanging leafy boughs seeming to reach out for them, springing back viciously as they pushed their way through. Close by a magpie called, a chattering mocking sound. If you listened carefully it seemed to say. ‘Keep away, keep away, keep away.’ The winding track was shaded, devoid of grass or bracken where the rays of the sun never penetrated. A dense world of darkness. Evil.
Latimer felt Pamela heave a sigh of relief as they emerged into bright sunshine again, a wilderness that had once been a large garden with a horseshoe-shaped weedy gravel drive looping in front of the large house.
‘Well at least Grafton's at home.’ Chris nodded towards the silent Range Rover, saw in the same glance that the back door was open. ‘I suppose it's polite to go to the front door, though.’
He noted the bell pull in the stone wall, tugged on it; there was no tension, the rusted knob slack, not retracting. It had been like that when he had lived here, something he had intended to get repaired and never had. Nobody else had either. He clenched his fist, rapped on the woodwork, a dull sound that echoed reluctantly within.
They waited, listening. Nothing except a scratching sound that came from somewhere on the upper storey. Latimer hammered on the door a second time, louder. The scratching stopped suddenly.
‘Grafton could be in bed, or in the bath.’ He felt he had to say something. ‘Let's take a stroll round to the back door. This is a big house and if you're at the other end sometimes you don't hear people at the door.’
The back door was wide open. Chris knocked again, sensed the hopelessness of their mission. Grafton didn't have to go everywhere in his Range Rover. The quarries were within easy walking distance, so was the village.
‘Maybe we ought to take a walk up to …’ His words died away as he caught the sound of an approaching vehicle coming along the track that branched off from the Lady Walk. ‘Somebody's coming.’
They stood there, experienced again the feeling of trespassers, guilt because for some reason in their own minds Hopwas Wood was ‘out of bounds’. For Chris Latimer it was humiliating; once he had been the owner of this place, now he could be ordered to leave without being given a reason. The law stated that a trespasser refusing to vacate private land could be removed using ‘no more force than was necessary’. Thrown out on your ear, in other words.
The car was travelling fast, gravel showering on its underside, bumping its way through the potholes; changing down to negotiate the bend into the main drive. Slewing, braking, the engine dying. A couple of seconds of silence and then the door slammed.
As Latimer walked round to the front of the house again he knew in his own mind it wouldn't be Grafton, had that feeling of futility again. A cloud of dust hung in the air and through it he made out a blue Mini, a tall girl in blue jeans with sweater to match striding towards the front door.
‘Hallo,’ he said. It sounded trite.
She stopped, whirled on them, sunlight glinting on long coppery hair, her features a mass of freckles.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice had a ring of authority to it. ‘What are you doing here?’ Blue eyes narrowed, almost hostile.
‘I …’ Latimer found himself swallowing. ‘I'm … we're looking for Mr Grafton, but he doesn't appear to be at home.’
‘What were you doing round the back?’
‘Knocking on the back door.’
A confrontation, an arrogance about the newcomer that had you answering her questions automatically. Guilt again; we're trespassing.
‘I want to see him too.’ Angry, flicking her hair back as she pushed past them, trying the front door then thumping on it. They stood there watching her. Let her find out for herself that Grafton's not in, it's no good trying to tell her. She hit the door again, turned back angrily. She obviously wanted Grafton badly.
‘The back door's open,’ Latimer said.
Her lips curled but no words came. All the same, you knew what she was thinking. I suppose you've been nosing around inside, eh. Trespassing.
They followed her round to the back again,
embarrassed but curious. Who the hell is she? Latimer asked himself. Well, if Grafton is around she'll surely find him.
She went inside but Chris and Pamela hung back. They could hear her hurrying footsteps, doors opening and closing, going upstairs. Coming down again. Back outside, looking dishevelled, worried, an almost apologetic expression that said. ‘You were right, he's not here.’
‘Who are you, anyway?’ she asked at length.
‘I'm Chris Latimer.’ He waved a hand towards his companion. ‘And this is Pamela.’ It might not be the moment to tell this insolent stranger that he had once lived here, owned these woods.
‘I'm Lynette Grafton.’ Her mouth puckered and in an instant that façade of arrogance was gone. Her eyes were misting and she was fighting to hold back the tears. ‘I … want my husband.’
‘He can't be far away,’ Latimer said.
‘I've been trying to get in touch with him for days but the phone was either permanently engaged or else there was no reply. I got the idea that he might have taken the receiver off for some reason. Then I read in the papers about … about all these terrible happenings.’
‘He's around,’ Chris Latimer smiled reassuringly. ‘We saw him only yesterday. His Range Rover's still here and if he isn't in the house then he's probably somewhere around the quarries.’
‘I'm going to look for him.’ Determination, a threat: if you won't come with me then I'll go alone.
‘We'll come with you.’ He took in her slim figure at one glance, felt Pamela's hand squeezing his. They were all going to search for Ralph Grafton. ‘You'd better not go alone … you might get lost in these quarries.’
Chris Latimer led the way, the two girls bringing up the rear. Nobody spoke; the tension was back again and it was not simply because Lynette had arrived. You got the feeling that something awful was going to happen again. Maybe Grafton wasn't around; there were innumerable permutations of where he might have gone, why he didn't need his Range Rover.