by Syd Moore
His next laugh sounded like an exploding canon. So strong and hearty. As he threw his head back to give it utterance, exposing his white flawless neck, something animal stirred within me. A sudden unbidden image of sitting astride him, naked, staring down at his wide chest, flashed across my brain.
Sex. Blimey, I hadn’t had any for ages. I felt my blood pressure rise.
‘Welsh?’ he said to himself, as if trying it out on his person. His eyes were glinting now, with a stomach-curdling energy – amusement and interest perhaps. ‘Something like that,’ he said, and pushed his hair back so I could see his face properly.
Was it just me or had he been inching closer?
He was, I noticed, broad-shouldered although that could have been the coat. Certainly, he wasn’t a thin man. Well-built and lithe. Pale though. His cheeks had no colour at all, like all the blood had been leached from them. It didn’t detract from his overall appeal, which I was beginning to succumb to despite myself. I didn’t usually get turned on by graveyards and churches but there was a first time for everything.
‘Here,’ he said and offered the phone to me, holding it by its end so I might be able to avoid physical contact. Which was sweet considering he didn’t know what had just happened.
I took it and put it in my jeans pocket. ‘Thanks.’ Then I realised that he must have seen me on my knees, scraping at the grave. That was most definitely not a good look. And even though I hadn’t had my handbag on my head, heat started to circulate in my cheek area. ‘I was looking for it. Er, down there.’
‘I figured,’ he said with a grin, that creased his face and made his eyebrows rise.
Wow. Great cheekbones, I thought, and the smile lingered.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, thanks very much.’
‘You’re lucky it didn’t get wet,’ he said and looked out the doorway into the writhing cemetery. The smile had grown smaller but his eyes remained crinkled at the sides. Those crows feet, I reckoned, put him a few years older than me. But not many. He could have been thirty-six, maybe thirty-eight.
‘Well, thanks,’ I said again, suddenly reluctant to get back to the pub.
He pushed off the wall and took a step towards me. I felt the power of his frame approach and swallowed. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
The wind was getting in through the cracks in the roof and starting to scream.
‘Rosie,’ I told him. ‘Rosie Strange.’
A dozen leaves blew in onto the flagstones between us.
‘Are you local, Rosie?’ he asked stepping on a cluster of them, the colour of dried blood.
I looked up into the dark pupils of his eyes and saw that they were twinkling with little pools of light, like moonbeams or reflections of disco lights. I had no idea where that was coming from, as although it was dry in here, it was also still dark.
‘Oh no. I’m in Adder’s Fork. Just visiting Damebury for a bit,’ I told him. ‘Are you? I mean, are you local?’
‘Same as you,’ he said. ‘Visiting. Popped back to collect some things I left here a while ago.’
‘Oh right,’ I said at a loss to continue the conversation.
And then he stared at me, and smiled again, though there was curiosity arching his eyebrows as if he wanted me to say something else. But I was suddenly self-conscious and couldn’t think of anything witty to say, so shrugged and went, ‘Right, well. Hope to see you soon.’ Which sounded stupid.
I thought about putting my bag back on my head, but was conscious of his gaze, and anyway there was no point now – I was pretty soaked through. Just hoped my mascara had held.
As I ran into the storm I heard him whisper into the wind, ‘Me too, Strange one, me too.’
Back in The Griffin, I decided not to share my peculiar encounter with the attractive stranger with Sam. Although his mood had lifted and he looked pleased when I returned to my seat and made concerning noises about my soggy state, I could tell he wasn’t back to normal.
‘Come on,’ I said, when I’d gulped down a large measure of diet coke, wishing I’d gone for something a bit stronger. ‘What’s up? This isn’t like you.’
He cupped the glass in the crook of his hand and shuddered. ‘Someone walked over my grave.’
I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not and thought about saying something like – yeah it was me – but guessed that given his melancholy air and potential freaked-out concussion that probably wasn’t the best course of action. So instead I settled for, ‘Ha ha ha’. And left it up to him to steer the conversation.
He stared at his glass, as if the answer to some unspoken question was in there waiting to be found.
It was odd. Another oddness, upon all the other oddities that were accumulating today.
‘That tombstone,’ I ventured after the lapse of more than a minute, which is a long time if there’s just two of you. ‘If this is what it’s all about, you’ve got to realise it’s just a coincidence. You’d be telling me the same thing, were I to suddenly develop an attack of the heebie-jeebies.’
More silence.
‘Is there any such thing as coincidence?’ he said eventually.
I was going to answer that when I met him he had told me that often you might assume things were connected when all you’d done is concentrate on a certain matter. And because your attention was on that, you ended up attaching meaning to anything that happened which might have any relevance, real or not, to that particular sphere or subject.
But he looked up with purpose and fixed his eyes on me. They were turning from amber to pine-cone brown, and rather disloyally I found myself thinking of Dorcus’s deep black eyes and how they had slanted upwards and gleamed. That would not do, I told myself and redirected my gaze to his.
With the short back and floppy fringe, the cut of his hair, and the plaster on his head, he suddenly put me in mind of a wounded soldier from the First World War. Then I thought of the inscription on the gravestone and shook the notion out of my head. Silly.
‘I’ve had a few moments lately,’ Sam said with an uncharacteristic indolence.
Now this was interesting. I’d had a few too, though I wasn’t sure if they were the same kind. Mine ranged from spasms of lust to feelings of utter dejection. Always the extremes with me.
But this wasn’t about me, was it. ‘Go on,’ I said.
‘I’ve been …’ he stopped and took a slug of his drink, ‘… I’ve been feeling out of sorts.’ I thought about feeling things. Body parts mostly. Then mentally slapped myself and refocused. Gawd, what was I like? One man shows me a bit of attention in a wet and windy graveyard and I can’t stop thinking about him. Ridiculous. Especially as I was sitting with another man who really did dominate my every waking hour. And my sleeping ones too.
Get a grip on yourself, Rosie Strange, I thought. Because no one’s going to do it for you. More’s the pity.
So, I coughed and shook out my shoulders, put my hands together on the table and gave Sam my full attention. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Fire away.’
‘I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell you. It’s been playing on my mind for a bit.’
Oh god, I thought. What now? I really couldn’t handle any more major revelations. I was still getting over the seismic rumblings of summer.
He threw the rest of the brandy down his neck. ‘I got the tape from the Seven Stars stake-out.’
‘Oh yes?’ I said. Phew. This was better. Something that didn’t really relate to family or relationships or any touchyfeely sexy stuff.
Mmm – sexy stuff.
‘Do you remember what was on there?’ he asked.
‘What?’ I said.
His voice changed. The rhythm accelerated. ‘Are you with me, Rosie?’
‘Yes, yes. Sorry. The tape.’
‘Do you remember?’ he asked again.
I refocused my attention more firmly. Oh yeah, I could bring to mind that stake-out pretty easily. It was when lots of crazy stuff had been going down in Adder’s Fork. The peasants
were revolting and someone had to step in to sort things – cue yours truly.
We had set up cameras by the road outside the local pub to see if any paranormal phenomena might occur. Now, usually I wasn’t what you’d call a believer in such things, but, after a while spent with Sam, you changed. Anyway, we liked to claim our motto was ‘open mind and healthy scepticism’.
At some point, that night, when I’d crossed the road from Sam’s camp to my friend Cerise, I had been trailed by what looked to be a sentient dust cloud.
I know.
When I had glanced at it, that’s just what I’d seen – a dust cloud that appeared to be taking shape, holding itself together. Sam and my friend Cerise, however, were convinced they’d seen someone.
The film footage hadn’t been conclusive. As in most of our night-time stake-outs, the focus of the camera often shifted. This was mainly because of flickering lights and such. On this particular occasion, the street lights had gone out and the quality of the footage had been affected by clouds crossing the moon. It had distorted the image. But what I thought we had got was the footage of a weird dust cloud.
I summed all of this up, by saying, ‘Yes I remember.’
‘You know I sent it off to be cleaned up by the lab?’ This was a specialist agency that Monty had access to. They worked on film and managed to extract workable images.
‘Er, you probably told me …’
‘Well, I’ve had it back.’
I was starting to feel uncomfortable myself. ‘Uh huh, uh huh,’ I said. ‘And?’
He took a long ominous breath in then looked at me and said, ‘I think there’s a ghost on it.’
CHAPTER TEN
The thing with Sam saying something like that, meant it was different to anyone else saying something like that.
When I had first met him, obviously in the context of the Witch Museum, I had assumed that he was a bit of a nut. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? What with the job and where he lived. You know, most normal people didn’t live in a ramshackle old building with the look of a skull and spend their lives researching witches in Essex. So I reckon I could have been forgiven for assuming that he was one of those crazy believers, off with the fairies so to speak. It didn’t take me long, however, to realise the man was a sceptic. A sceptic who hoped there was more to life, more to the universe and all that. But just hoped. I didn’t know why he hoped but I knew he did. However, he was a rationalist. In fact he had told me quite early on that he was something called an empiricist too. This meant he drew conclusions on the basis of physical evidence, observation and experimentation. Which basically means – it’s got to be seen/heard/felt then recorded and analysed and agreed upon. Yeah – empiricism, right? So it works for things like black holes and gravity, but ghosts? Anyway, it’s a good word to use if ever someone thinks you’re thick. Being a blondish blingish chick from Essex with more than a bit of natural bounce in the chest area and a nice rounded accent too, that kind of attitude came at me from snooty people all over the place. Believe it or not there are people who make judgements based on their first few seconds of meeting you. I know. As if I would do anything like that. But a good way to punch them on that nose, down which they are looking, is to trot out a few choice words from your vocabulary pocket. Empiricist is one of them. Nuance works on occasion. Pareidolia is not bad either. Sometimes it shocks them so much their mouths drop open and if you happen to have a clutch of peanuts in your hand a lot of fun can be had by trying to throw one in. You have to get your aim right though.
Anyway, my point is Sam didn’t say things like that lightly. Usually he explored every avenue and sought other explanations.
So, this being quite a bombshell, it did not take us long to leg it out of the pub, back to the Witch Museum and up into the study area, where Sam had a desk with several pieces of recording equipment and monitors.
I spent the whole journey back saying, ‘Are you sure?’
While Sam responded with, ‘It’s the closest thing I’ve seen so far.’
‘Is that a yes then?’
‘It’s the closest thing I’ve seen so far.’
And then, ‘Are you sure?’
So round and round we went, with Sam periodically punctuating the repetitive cycle with instructions to ‘Slow down’, ‘Keep your eyes on the road’, ‘Bend!’ and the usual passenger-seat driving he was so well loved for.
So when we got into the study and pulled up the chairs, I was, it might be true to say, in a state of high expectation. In fact I think I might have had my own mouth open when he played the clip.
And I hate to say it, but what I saw was definitely a bit of a let-down. Whoever had edited the footage had cut together a nice little sequence that worked from both angles.
Half of it was supplied from Sam’s all-singing all-dancing relatively new camera that he had acquired from Monty and which Monty had acquired from some unknown benevolent ‘patron’. It was extremely sensitive, even in virtually no light. He kept going on about it and boasting about his massive pixels (who didn’t like a guy with massive pixels, eh?). Plus, even better than that apparently, it had some kind of extra filter that also allowed it to capture extra infrared detail in the dark. So that footage looked pretty cool, especially as there was quite a lot of light from the moon that night. Then, on the other hand, there was the stuff from the run-of-the-mill night vision camera that had been positioned by the hedge where Cerise and I kept watch. This film had a strong green tinge and was a little on the dodgy side.
So the sequence opened with me, caught on good quality footage, faffing around with Sam and the other woman who was helping us in the stake-out, Chloe Brown from the Forensic Archaeology department at Litchenfield University. Once I had procured a bottle of prosecco off of them, ‘Film Rosie’ spun round and sauntered across the road, looking hot, I thought, in shorts and cowboy boots, and also giving the impression that she didn’t have a care in the world. There was something a little bit Daisy Duke, I thought now, about my hair in the summer. It looked quite good, a little longer than I usually liked it, but I remembered I’d recently had a Brazilian (on my head hair) and it had taken out a lot of the frizz. Not bad, I thought, and noted that that combination of shorts, tee and boots was great. The boots were particularly fetching and kind of ‘relaxed looking’. They had been scuffed up earlier in the year during a fight with a ruthless human trafficker, but that had just made them look more ‘worn in’. On reflection, I thought that was now preferable to spankingly new. I made a mental note to self and got back to watching ‘Film Me’ sashay in the road.
Halfway over however, I saw myself stop and peer at something on the ground. The shot from the night vision camera was not particularly good at this point. Though the moon was coming through the clouds and there were some pockets of light, my figure seemed to merge with the hedge behind which Chloe and Sam were hidden. It was difficult to make out the difference between vegetation and living flesh, and I’ve never thought that before.
The footage cut to Mr Massive Pixel’s camera. We watched Film Me turn in Sam’s direction and raise a hand, as if to wave. But then I paused, the hand hung limply in the air. My head turned away. At that point clouds must have eclipsed the moon, because the light seemed to vanish and everything got very dark indeed.
‘See here,’ said Sam, and pressed pause. ‘You’re looking at this.’ He moved his finger to the screen, where I could just make out a kind of shadowy oval blob, darker and denser than the rest of the air. He pressed play and we watched as it seemed to move within itself, although externally stayed stationary.
‘That summer though,’ I said, and Sam hit pause again, ‘there were loads of crazy things going on. Remember – we had the dead birds, the possibility of poisonous gas which might have been released when that grave was opened. And the sky kept doing strange things the week we did the stakeout. There was that weird orange dust and those red clouds that they said had been caused by a storm in Arabia or forest fires in Spain or s
omething.’
‘But so localised?’ said Sam and stared at the screen. ‘To an area of a couple of metres? My friend at the University thinks not.’ He pressed play again.
Film Me looked startled and opened her mouth. Sam hit stop again and said, ‘Look. You say something, but your breath vaporises.’
I shrugged. ‘So?’
‘It was summer,’ he said. ‘The temperature that night was twenty-three degrees Celsius. I’ve checked. That can’t happen.’
We both ogled the screen as he pressed play and the dark cloud thing appeared to form a point out of what might be judged as its shoulder area. Film Me turned to peer at Cerise’s hide-out.
Sam took his finger to the screen and circled the area of the dark cloud – a thin line of similar density had flowed out. ‘You follow where it looks like its pointing. It’s directing you. Then, look, you put your hands over your ears. Can you remember why?’
I saw Film Me shake her head and did the same. ‘Not clearly. I have the notion there was a blast of static noise or something. I told you this over the summer.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I’m also aware that back in spring when we were hurtling round the country looking for the remains of Ursula Cadence, we had that moment in the car. Do you remember? It was when that gangster, that thug—’
‘Bogović?’
‘Yes him – the guy who worked for Countess Barbary, when he had stolen Ursula’s bones? Do you remember? The Countess had them—’
‘And she was about to do some kind of upside-down weird ritual with her nutty alchemist mates.’
‘An inversion ritual. Yes. But my point is, when we were in the car, on the way to Hades Hall, we got that call. It was also like a blast of static. It came out of the speakers in the car. We both heard it. At first it sounded like “Harry”. But then afterwards we thought it might have been “hurry”. Which makes a difference.’
‘But didn’t we decide we’d picked up a taxi broadcast?’ I asked.
‘We didn’t draw a firm conclusion,’ he said slowly. ‘But we spoke about it after that night in La Fleur. Remember, when you saw the girl?’