‘Just like Spotson said,’ I whispered.
McGray was awestruck. ‘This wee thing is so poisonous ye’d die from touching it with yer fingertip.’
‘Then do not hold it so close to me,’ I snapped. ‘I must insist we …’ Then I saw a crate containing what looked like cheap tea tins. I opened one, to discover it was full of dried foxgloves: flowers, leaves and chopped stems.
‘Yer favourite,’ McGray mocked.
‘Sirs,’ said Thatcher, coming to us with a thick accountancy book, ‘I just found this. You’d better have a look.’
McGray was having a field day looking around, so it was I who leafed through the book. To my surprise, it was one of the tidiest ledgers I had ever seen, with detailed accounts of expenditure, income and profit margins.
‘They are running a nice little business here,’ I said. ‘A trade in poisons and hallucinogens and charms …’
‘Who would have thought?’ McGray added. ‘A web of witches, trading black magic.’
I chuckled. ‘There is hardly any magic here, but it is impressive nonetheless: very sophisticated chemistry. I would not blame the unlearned folk for thinking all this is supernatural – you, Nine-Nails, have no excuse. I believe that … Oh, for goodness’ sake, McGray, stop pocketing stuff! This is evidence. We must have Massey seize all this merchandise.’
He ignored me and went on stuffing his every pocket with herbs, sachets and amulets. He sensed my recriminating stare.
‘What? I’m doing field research!’
I shook my head and searched around with Thatcher. In the furthest corner we found what would have been a little office, where an old, dusty desk had been pushed to one side. There was an improvised bed, a bundle of blankets and a few logs in a small burner. One of them still glowed.
Lying nearby were the ends of a loaf of bread, an empty bottle of red wine and the discarded bones of two roast chickens.
‘That was an expensive meal,’ I said. ‘McGray, you should –’
Thatcher gasped, suddenly as pale as parchment, and he pointed ahead. On the opposite side of the room there was a door to a wide cupboard … but it was ajar.
My eyes descended slowly, and I felt a cold wave of fear when I saw the tip of a large foot sticking out. Someone was still there.
I gulped, losing my focus for an instant. I was going to aim at the door and shout to the man to come out, but before I could do anything the world erupted into chaos.
The cupboard door was flung open with an explosive movement. Then Thatcher yelled and dropped the lantern, which showered sparks as it shattered on the floor. Then I could see nothing. There was a savage growl and the wooden floor creaked under the stomps of what seemed a wild beast.
Thin strips of light came in from the street through the boarded-up windows, and I could make out only fleeting hints of pale skin and the flashing spark of two sharp black eyes. He was a mighty thug who looked like a circus weightlifter: a wall of muscles, gigantic in all three dimensions, and I caught a slatted glimpse of a thick moustache all waxed and curled up. He was wielding a thick bludgeon, and as we saw it we instinctively jumped backwards, my body colliding with McGray’s.
All this happened in an instant, and before we could react the behemoth struck a mighty blow on Thatcher’s shoulder. I heard the chap’s bones cracking and his anguished scream as he fell to his knees. The giant kicked him aside and then ran at us, his stamping feet shaking the entire building.
We aimed our guns at him and McGray fired, but just as he pulled the trigger the brute knocked over a tower of boxes, and an avalanche of witchcraft paraphernalia rained down over our heads.
Glass jars and boxes hit my head and I fell flat on my chest, my gun sliding out of my hand. I felt for it frantically, but then my fingers landed on something soft and slimy. I shrieked. Had I just squashed the poisonous frog? How many seconds would I have if –
I rubbed my hand on the floor, desperate, and as I did so I felt the grip of my gun. Just as I touched it a mighty hand grabbed my leg and dragged my entire body from under the rubble.
I slid through broken glass, herbs and slimy articles, until the man lifted me in the air and I found myself hanging by a leg, upside down, swinging from side to side like a trophy salmon.
I saw his towering bulk, a triumphant grin and him wielding the truncheon to strike a final blow to my head. I was resigned to a smashed skull but, with all his might, McGray threw a tea tin that hit the brute in the temple.
Though the man seemed hardly to feel it, for a split second he turned to see where the object had come from, and then a large bottle smashed right into his face. An oily liquid splashed all over him, and as he roared his grasp loosened.
My cheekbone hit the wooden floor and I heard more bottles shattering. I crawled away, whimpering, hearing his enormous feet crushing everything in their way.
McGray screeched: ‘Shoot him!’
I groped around on the floor desperately, cutting my fingers more than once on shards of glass. I saw a jar rolling away, shimmering under a strip of light, and in it the bright yellow frog. It hardly registered, for I could hear McGray shouting again, amidst the din of crashing wood and glass. I looked up and caught a glimpse of the bludgeon falling towards Nine-Nails, who dodged it by mere inches, throwing whatever he could lay hands on at that mountain of a man. Right then I felt the cool trigger brush against my thumb, just as McGray tripped over a sack of herbs and fell on his back.
‘Shoot ’im, ye bleeding sod!’
I grabbed the weapon so tightly my fingers ached, my eyes fixed on McGray’s shadow, now crawling across the floor. The man’s massive back blocked my view, and in the second it took me to point the gun he struck two deafening blows. McGray hollered.
I fired without really aiming, and the explosion of the shot obscured every other noise.
There was an eerie pause. Neither McGray nor the circus freak made a sound. Thatcher whimpered in the background, and then, as if a bubble had burst, I heard a grunt and saw the man’s broad hand rising to squeeze his right shoulder. The truncheon fell and bounced on the floor.
Just as I pulled the trigger again the man turned, his now bloodstained hand describing a great arc and hitting my wrist, sending my shot to the ceiling. Then he trudged to the staircase. I stood up and fired again, but an instant too late.
‘Ye all right?’ McGray said, springing to his feet, searching around for Thatcher.
‘I can walk,’ said the young man, ‘but I won’t be –’
‘Good. Get yerself some help.’ Nine-Nails tossed debris aside and somehow found his gun immediately. He barked at me without pausing, ‘If ye’d taken one more second, my brains would be mush!’
‘You are welcome!’ I snapped, following him down to the empty ground floor.
‘He’s gone.’
The front entrance was deserted, but then we heard the creak of another door, flapping in the gusts of wind.
We rushed outside, to a main road, too wide and too straight for anyone to hide so quickly. Simultaneously we caught a glimpse of a large carriage heading east, swift and thunderous, and then the circus freak making his escape in the opposite direction. McGray swore and ran after him without hesitation.
I was puzzled by that carriage but I could not have caught it, so I followed Nine-Nails along the deserted avenue.
The man was surprisingly fast, but on the open road there was nothing to hide his silhouette. McGray fired a couple of times, but his aim was so erratic I could not believe it.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked him, nearly out of breath, but he did not reply.
We ran on, until the road bent slightly northwards and for a moment we lost the man around the corner. By the time we reached it he was entering a small side road.
The sign read Bridge Lane, and behind a row of terraced houses we encountered a thick brick wall. The man was climbing it with an agility unthinkable for someone his size, and by the time we reached the wall there was but a trail
of his blood left on the disturbed snow.
McGray jumped up, easily grabbing the top of the wall and then pulling himself upwards. He had to lend me a hand and as he pulled me up I felt the cold bricks grazing my entire body.
He did not offer to help me jump down, and I fell on all fours like a clumsy toddler. I scrambled up and as I ran forwards I saw that we were in very luxurious walled gardens: snow-dusted lawns lined with privet, leafless rose bushes and frozen fountains.
I saw a line of tall townhouses to our left, all their windows lit, and beyond them loomed the castle walls. We were running along the back of the road where old Judge Spotson lived.
‘He’s going to the priory,’ McGray yelled as I caught him up.
‘That is right beside the castle!’ I cried, looking at the cluster formed by the priory’s bell tower and the castle’s turrets. It was as though the man was heading straight for the police headquarters.
I could not see him any more. Neither could McGray, but he was following the unmistakable deep footprints in the snow. The gardens ascended a gentle slope; nonetheless we soon found ourselves out of breath. With every stride I felt more and more hopeless, as if my entire existence had been nothing more than that futile chase. I grunted and cursed, but just as my knees began to burn we reached the courtyard of St Mary’s Church.
The thick door was partly open, showing a warm glow within.
We found the nave in complete silence, the echoes of our careful steps the only sound. We were finally in a well-lit place, with countless candles burning on each side of the pews, their golden flames flickering in the wind we’d brought in.
On the granite flagstones there was a clear trickle of blood.
The tiny drops drew a twisted track all along the aisle, and we followed it across the choir stalls. There were Gothic carvings of bats and gargoyles perched above each chair, and in the quivering light their eyes almost looked alive.
As we advanced I looked around, my gun at the ready, expecting someone to jump from behind the columns and pointed arches.
‘Don’t move!’ McGray shouted, startling me, and hurled himself forwards.
Past the choir stalls the trickle of blood became smudged, as if clumsily mopped, until it disappeared completely. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, for my attention was on McGray. I felt a twinge of fear in my chest when I saw movement in front of him.
A cloaked figure, thin and undeniably female, had been lurking at the altar and was now running for dear life, clasping a bloodstained bundle of rags. Had she just cleaned up the trail of blood? We had a glimpse of a small hand, bony and as pale as a corpse’s, grasping the edge of the stone arch that led to the bell tower. The figure disappeared in an instant.
McGray grabbed one of the thick candles, the wax dripping on his bare hand, and marched on.
‘Stop!’ he roared.
We filed up the spiral staircase, the woman’s steps echoing ahead of us. She was breathing laboriously and letting out a faint, wicked laugh. It was the sound of an old woman, but eerie and cruel, and hearing it in the darkness made me shiver.
‘Are ye Redfern?’ McGray shouted. ‘Where did yer bully go?’
The laughter turned into a frank cackle, ever nearer, as we reached the top steps. That tower was the highest point in Lancaster, and when we stepped out the wind blew so strongly it made McGray stagger.
The candle went out immediately, and in the moonless night, so high above the street lights, everything turned black. But the darkness did not last long.
There was a sudden spark, and before I could take in what I was seeing there came an explosion of light and fire.
McGray jumped backwards, pushing me back with his arm, and I nearly fell down the winding staircase.
In a blink the belfry was ablaze, violent flames bursting from the bells themselves and shining in the strangest shade of emerald. I felt the wave of heat on my face, almost burning my skin and blurring my vision. McGray pulled me aside and we both crouched against the damp stones, hearing the roar of the fire, feeling the scorching heat pass through our coats and burn our backs. I feared the flames would char our bodies, but the initial wave soon receded. McGray was the first to rise and I heard him whistle in awe. I turned around but instantly had to shade my brow with the back of my hand. Through half-closed eyes I saw the fire, and despite its intensity I could not look away. I was rapt by the flames, so terrible yet so beautiful. I will never forget that fulgent shade of green.
McGray had to nudge me. ‘Where did she go?’
I looked around; the stones of the belfry were now brightly lit but we could see no one. We walked around the fire, squeezing against the balustrade and inspecting every corner.
‘She’s gone,’ Nine-Nails whispered.
‘She cannot be! Where to?’
I looked down, to the courtyard and surrounding gardens, but saw only a young watchman, looking up at the fire in utter astonishment.
Over the roar of the fire we heard a sharp caw and then saw a raven, its wings blacker than the night, flying away from the tower. I watched it go and then I gasped.
‘McGray …’ I mumbled, pointing. I was so astounded I could not say another word.
Somewhere in the distance, miles away, a second fire cut the darkness, as green as the flames by which we stood. It was above the horizon, and my troubled mind thought it was floating in the sky.
Beyond, just as McGray came to watch, a third green spark appeared, so far away it was but a faint little star against a black background.
We held our breaths, speechless, and with a shudder we realized that something terrible had just been unleashed.
21
Nobody had to extinguish the flames – they simply receded, leaving the bells glowing as if they’d just been taken out of a blacksmith’s furnace. Neither McGray nor I managed to move until the flames were gone; we remained staring alternately at this and the more distant fires, and then we had to shake the bewilderment out of our heads. Things had taken a far more mysterious turn, and now we had a lot of work to do.
Searching the church must be the first thing, so we rushed to the castle and brought as many guards as they could spare. One small group was sent to the shipyards to search the old warehouse, but most of them were told to help us at the priory.
When we returned we found a little crowd already gathered around the courtyard, staring in amazement at the top of the tower. I could not blame them: the bells were like embers against the dark sky. Nobody seemed to regard the ungodly hour and weather, and we had to elbow our way through the throng.
‘ ’Tis the Devil’s work!’ I heard a rustic woman say, a scared little boy clinging to her skirts. Then came the drunken cries of a middle-aged man, who stood precariously on top of a bucket as he shouted his lungs out.
‘The end of the world!’ he roared, waving a nearly empty bottle of spirits. ‘Repent! Repent! You filthy, sinful wre–’
McGray silenced him by ‘accidentally’ nudging him off his perch, then winked at me, as if it were the height of wit.
‘Disperse this mob,’ I told the officers, and they began sending the people forcefully on their way – with a kick in the behind for the intoxicated preacher.
The crowd scattered quickly, but I knew that in the morning everyone in Lancaster would be talking of nothing but the strange green fires.
The abbot, a middle-aged man as tall as he was wide, came to aid us with an enormous set of keys. We searched every corner of the church and its surroundings: the organ, the choir, the sacristy … Nothing and no one untoward was found.
The only traces of the huge man and the old woman were the half-erased track of blood and the rags used to clean it, which we found half charred in a corner of the belfry.
It was in the small hours, well past three o’clock, when I saw McGray lean against a granite column and surrender to a deep yawn. I was not feeling too well either.
‘We should go for a rest,’ I told him. ‘The officers can
manage without us until morning.’
He shook his head, but then he yawned again and I had no trouble pulling him out of the priory. Even the freezing air of the small hours was not enough to cut through his fatigue, and when we arrived in the inn he landed on his bed like a log. Unusually, he was snoring in seconds.
I took off my overcoat, but before hanging it on a chair I had a look at all the trinkets I’d been collecting: Oakley’s telegram urging her to go to Lancaster, Redfern’s letter smeared in crow’s blood, Joel’s portrait … and then my notebook, still open at the page where Miss McGray had scribbled Marigold. I thought how things were spiralling out of control: we’d started off chasing a single madman, investigating a single murder, only to plunge ourselves into the swamp of intrigues of the Ardglass clan. And if that were not enough, their family affairs now turned out to be somehow linked to this tangle of dark ‘magic’ and an underground coterie of smuggling witches.
I decided I would not think about any of that just then, and shoved the portrait and other items back into the coat pocket.
Despite my total exhaustion I did not sleep much, mostly because of Nine-Nails’ rumbling snores, and by six o’clock I could not take any more tossing and turning. I got up and found the innkeeper receiving a cartful of groceries, so I ordered a hearty breakfast.
My appetite was finally restored, and I devoured fried eggs, bacon, cheese and scones. I was particularly delighted by the latter, because it was impossible to get hold of decent scones in Scotland.
I was buttering my second helping of the delicious fruity bread when McGray joined me. His hair was dishevelled, his eyes red, and the creases in his overcoat, which he’d not taken off throughout the night, showed perfectly on which side he’d slept. Still, the words he chose to greet me were: ‘Ye look ghastly.’
I did not lie. ‘I had a terrible night.’
‘How come? Did I snore?’
‘Snored, talked, belched, farted – apart from your ears, there is not a crevice in your body that did not produce some sort of noise.’
A Fever of the Blood Page 16