by Syd Moore
I took up Dorcus’s warning and fled. Never had I run like that before.
Back through the wood.
Wailing and screaming.
Screaming and wailing.
On my lips words were coming out. The same ones over and over again.
As I reached the edges of the forest, my half-fried mind processed them:
I was chanting something about being touched.
Touched by the hand of a god.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sam later explained, when he came to collect me from hospital, I had more likely been touched by the hand of a plod. Specifically, PC Lambert, who had been sitting in a patrol car outside the Hall minding his business whilst puzzling out a sudoku game, when he had become alert to a disturbance in the porch.
On further investigation he ascertained two residents appeared to be chasing each other round the side of the house. Radioing said activity through to Operation Control he left his vehicle to inspect the premises. The residents appeared to have been in such a hurry that they had left the front door open. PC Lambert duly ensured said premises were secure and not vulnerable to intruders. Once satisfied that there was no further activity of the criminal variety taking place in Ratchette Hall, he proceeded to search the grounds and gardens.
At 0500 hours our fearless duty officer discovered a man sitting by the edge of the property where the woods began. Later identified as Samuel Stone (Caucasian IC1) this person of interest was, at that moment, in what can only be described as a state of high agitation. He was holding a hand bell, which, unprovoked, he demonstrated to PC Lambert. Unfortunately, the noise then caused some breach of the peace and Mr Stone was advised to desist immediately or face consequences. Luckily no further residents of Ratchette Hall, who PC Lambert had been charged with observing, were wakened by him.
After several exclamations and incoherent expressions of frustration, one of which involved offensive language, Samuel Stone then explained that his partner, Rosie Strange, was currently in pursuit of an intruder suspected of ringing aforementioned bell.
At this, PC Lambert, realising said incident may well require the filling-in of much paperwork, namely a report for his higher-ranking, rigorous and often displeased Sergeant (Scrub), immediately began to search for his notebook. After recording the time of the incident, he then requested details from Mr Stone as to why he came to be sitting on the grass at this hour.
Stone, however, grew increasingly hostile, indicating not only that he may have incurred an injury to his person but that his partner, Ms Strange, being in the woods for quite some time and in pursuit of the unknown bell-ringer, may have put herself in the path of danger and may perhaps require assistance. Stone was, however, unable to identify exactly how long she had been absent despite several questions and different approaches and also was unable to give a description of said bell-ringer.
Having not yet connected the unknown fleeing bell-ringer with the assault, PC Lambert was at a loss to understand why Mr Stone was expecting him to enter the woods and proceeded to question him with some rigour regarding the consumption of alcohol and/or recreational drugs.
Receiving denials, which also bore signs of increased aggression, Stone got to his feet and began to grab at PC Lambert’s arm, demanding the officer enter the wood and seek out Ms Strange.
Worried that the current situation might escalate into mindless violence, PC Lambert began to caution Mr Stone with a view to arrest, whereupon, with much uproar (which most definitely constituted elements pertaining to a breach of the peace) Ms Strange emerged from the wood. Being covered in a muddy solution from head to toe, with hair and face in varying states of disarray, Ms Strange was clearly exhibiting symptoms of recreational drug use.
PC Lambert promptly restrained Ms Strange and applied handcuffs. Whereupon Ms Strange appeared to lose consciousness. PC Lambert immediately radioed for backup and, noting a cut to Ms Strange’s forehead and grazes on her chin, the ambulance service.
‘But,’ I said to Sam when he had finally stopped doing his Old Bill impression, ‘Did he go in? Into the woods? Did he see the man? Dorcus?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Not then. Who is this guy?’
‘Oh I’ll tell you later. But there was an animal-stag-god thing in there. Did they search it?’
‘Er what?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Did they enter the woods?’
‘They did when the backup arrived. The light was coming at that point, but it had started to rain and I’m not sure they found anything.’
I considered this and the strange coil of events that had brought me to my spot in Outpatients.
‘I’m not surprised,’ I said.
‘No?’ said Sam. He was sitting on a chair next to me, waiting for the nurse to sign me out.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Because it’s not a person whose been doing this.’
Sam’s eyebrows peaked a couple of inches above the top lids. ‘It’s not?’
‘No,’ I said and shook my head, which ached rather a lot. ‘It’s Cernunnos. Possibly accompanied by a vampire called Dorcus.’ And then in a very quick and thoroughly overexcited fashion, I explained what had happened, finishing with my visit, to what I had surprised myself by calling, the ‘sacred cave of knowledge.’ I also detailed the giant ‘man-stag’ and mentioned Dorcus sending me back to safety. He was a good vampire.
‘Ah,’ said Sam when I had finished.
His composure was completely odd. I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t jumping up and down, clapping his hands and trilling about proof of a world beyond this, a world we didn’t fully comprehend or know, and the triumph of supernature.
‘Sam,’ I said and took his sleeve and shook his arm up and down. ‘This is amazing news. Why aren’t you punching the air and phoning Monty? This changes everything. This is better than your ghost, right?’
For a second he drew back and looked at me. A cloud of uncertainty passed over him. Then he mastered himself, cleared his throat and adjusted his sleeves. ‘Right, yes. Now, listen. I’ve got to tell you something.’
His face was grave. I looked deeper into his eyes to see if he was masking another emotion, something perhaps that he couldn’t contain. But they were a practical corduroy colour – no whirring flicks of granite or amber in them. No light from another realm that played upon the irises. No excitement.
I puffed out a sigh. ‘What?’
‘Look,’ he said and turned towards me, his knee knocking mine. I was too deflated to even feel a spark of electricity from the brief physical contact. ‘Everything’s all right,’ he said in a soft tone. ‘And the doctor says you’re fine now, so don’t worry, but there’s a possibility, quite a high one, she thinks, and I do too, that you may have brushed or fallen into belladonna. Didn’t the doctor tell you that?’
‘She was going on about some bird called Trophy Donna who liked peery herbs or something. I zoned out.’
‘Atropa belladonna is a perennial herbaceous plant.’
‘Okay,’ I said flatly.
‘Deadly nightshade,’ he said firmly.
Images of the plant, cut into stems and arranged in a bouquet back at the museum flashed over my mind. ‘Deadly nightshade? Oh shit.’ Yes, I’d heard of that before.
Sam nodded slowly. ‘Indeed.’
‘Oh god,’ I said. I knew it could be fatal. It was deceptive: the petals looked like tiny bells and were an attractive brownish purple. Their pointed leaves were a lovely pale green and ribbed so that if you were tactile you might be inclined to run your thumb back and forth across them, as I had nearly done once.
Town dwellers might be caught off guard if they picked them in September. But, then again, it wasn’t summer. ‘But it’s autumn,’ I said to Sam.
‘Yes,’ he said and nodded. ‘Some varieties continue to bloom until mid-December. And it has been a mild autumn this year.’
Then I remembered peering into the wood after Devlin had seen the angel commotioning. Had I
seen purple heads in there?
‘But,’ I thought out loud, ‘wouldn’t Graham have got them off the property? As they were dangerous. Wouldn’t someone have taken charge and done that?’
He shrugged. ‘There are quite a lot in there. Witch Wood isn’t the responsibility of Ratchette Hall. The police searched it this morning. There are definitely a variety of shrubs growing. Many have been trampled on but some have grown high.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘So when I fell …’
He nodded. ‘You probably touched them. The poison can be absorbed through the fingers if you’re not wearing gloves. Or through eating the berries.’
Oh blimey, yes, Chloe the forensic archaeologist had told us about that back when we got the ‘flower bomb’.
‘Well, at least I didn’t do that,’ I said. ‘Eat them, I mean.’
‘Not you, no,’ he said.
We lapsed into silence as I thought back to that moment in the cave. I could remember it so well: the knowledge, the feeling of it. ‘It felt so important,’ I said and shook my head. ‘So real …’ My mind returned to the giant-sized man-stag, an image which prompted a weary sigh. ‘I thought it was a god. The horns, the great proportions … and then Dorcus …’ I stopped myself from saying any more. It all seemed ridiculous now.
‘I’m afraid hallucinations and delirium are all part and parcel of aconite or atropine poisoning, Rosie dear.’ Sam looked down at his feet then said. ‘Lilliputian hallucinations are not uncommon, according to the doctor.’
I looked up at him. ‘What’s that?’
‘When things can appear smaller or larger than they actually are.’
I nodded. ‘That sounds like Alice in Wonderland syndrome.’
‘It’s similar.’
‘Blimey. I thought that sounded crazy when Dr Roberts first told me about it.’ I shook my head in dismay. ‘So I probably just saw a deer, but because I was tripping, my brain amplified it?’ And maybe Dorcus wasn’t even there. I had allowed myself to linger a little longer on him over the past day than perhaps I should have done. Though someone had pulled me up. Or maybe I pulled myself up. The whole thing was getting foggy and blurred.
‘Something like that.’ Sam patted my shoulder. ‘There are other symptoms too – headache, rash, flushes, dry mouth and throat, slurred speech …’
I tried to think back. Mmmm, all of those were possible.
He continued. ‘Nausea, confusion and,’ he fidgeted in his seat, ‘coma.’
I nodded, remembering back in summer when we’d received that particular bouquet. ‘Death, I thought, sometimes, too.’
‘It’s such a good job,’ he said, ‘that you threw up when you did.’
‘How did you know you that I threw up?’ I said. I had tastefully omitted that particular detail in my description.
‘Oh Rosie,’ he said. ‘You were covered in a veritable pot-pourri of aromas when you emerged from the grips of the forest. And you had some down your front. I spotted sweetcorn from the salad at dinner. Anyway, you gave PC Lambert quite a fright.’
‘Did I?’ I said and giggled inappropriately.
‘Oh yes.’ Sam extended his hand and ruffled the hair on the back of my head. ‘The words “Stig of the Dump” were used.’
‘Oh,’ I said, feeling less amused. It was not the most flattering of comparisons.
‘The doctor reckoned it could have been a lot worse, if you hadn’t “expelled the toxins”.’
For a moment he looked so pale and stricken that I put my hand on his arm and said, ‘Well at least I’m all right now. Don’t look so worried – I’m not going to die.’
‘No,’ he said and cast his woody eyes onto mine. ‘But Imogen and Robin might.’
I gasped and retracted my arm. ‘What? No. What’s happened?’
‘Atropine poisoning. Same as you.’
‘Why? How?’
He shook his head. ‘Several members of the household awoke when the police backup arrived last night, or rather, this morning. But others didn’t. Myself and PC Lambert informed Sophia of what was going on and she told the residents. After that some of them went back to bed again. I stayed to give my statement to the police and go through the tapes with them. Then,’ he shrugged, ‘when I thought I’d got everything sorted, I had a kip.’
I nodded. That was cool. I didn’t mind.
‘I knew you were at the hospital and being checked, so …’
‘It’s okay,’ I said again. He looked guilty for sure. ‘No worries.’
‘Well, they started breakfast apparently. Everyone was quite bleary-eyed and tired anyway, but Tabitha and Jocelyn worried when Imogen and Robin didn’t come down for breakfast. They were usually so prompt.’
‘Oh my god,’ I said, remembering their behaviour last night at the dinner table. ‘I thought they were a bit pissed at dinner, but it was the poison taking hold.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Sam.
‘How on earth did you work out it was atropine poisoning?’
Sam winced. ‘Imogen had picked a bunch of flowers on her walk yesterday. She had some in a vase and some spread over her desk: ferns, pennyroyal, soapwort, daisies, late blooming belladonna. And one withering strand of wolfsbane. That’s aconite and atropine poison in one double whammy. She must have been called to dinner halfway through arranging them.’
‘At least, that stopped her handling them any further,’ I added.
‘Yes.’ Sam shook his head. ‘But their symptoms are quite severe, which may suggest they consumed berries too. We just don’t know.’
‘That’s awful,’ I said. ‘You would have thought Imogen might have known about that plant and its qualities. From her, er, background.’
Sam frowned. ‘I don’t think being descended from circus folk automatically qualifies you as a botanist.’
‘No,’ I said and looked at my hands as if they might be stained with aconite juice. ‘I guess not.’
‘Robin had been out walking with Imogen and several of the group. He must have helped her pick them.’
‘Wow,’ I said again. ‘How unfortunate. Any chance of foul play?’
‘Possibly. If they were directed to pick the flowers by someone else, who did in fact know what they were and what the effects would be.’
Sam tapped his fingers on the side of the chair. ‘The police are looking into the Atropa belladonna bushes. It does seem that there are rather a lot of them. We’re considering the possibility that some may have been planted there specifically for this purpose.’
I frowned. That was a dark and nasty thought. If that had occurred then the pair had been cruelly manipulated. ‘But who would do that?’
Sam shook his head. ‘We don’t know when they came back yesterday afternoon. The police weren’t surveying the place at that point. Scrub muttered something about “cuts”. But apparently Sophia and Carole got back to the house first so they could start preparing dinner. The walking group broke up. They drifted back in their pairs, or one by one. Nobody noticed when Robin and Imogen entered the house, and of course no one is admitting to having walked with them. The only ones who are in the clear are Nicholas and Devlin who had alibis from the pub.’
The funny feeling was back in my stomach again. It amplified the darkness there and sent a jolt of bile up into my mouth. I swallowed the bitterness and said in a low voice, ‘And then there were six.’ And four dead or incapacitated: Imogen and Robin, Cullen and Graham. Three writers and one member of staff. It was strange. What was the connection, if there was one at all? And why had Graham been the first? Graham the mild-mannered janitor, who nobody seemed to mind.
‘Monty’s so not going to be pleased about this. Since we’ve arrived the whole situation has got worse, not better,’ Sam grumbled. ‘Which reminds me, we need to find out if you can leave now. Monty’s coming to have a look at the bell. If we’re lucky it will have fingerprints on it.’
‘Or claw prints,’ I said, joking. Well half-joking, maybe.
Sam
just tutted and said, ‘Oh Rosie.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When the doctor arrived, over-rushed and frantic but trying her absolute best to appear calm, she gave me the all-clear, told Sam to keep an eye on me and to come back if I started to develop any worrying symptoms.
That was good enough for us.
We got back to the museum. I climbed up into Septimus’s bedroom and took a nap.
I think I was out for a couple of hours. When I woke up I felt okay considering the poisoning and the fact I had been up all night. Then I remembered I hadn’t been up all night: after that whisky I’d fallen asleep on the job. Literally. In fact I must have got at least three or four hours in. Then, after my trip on the dark fantastic, I’d been conked out at the hospital too. So actually, I’d had more sleep over the past twenty-four hours than I usually did.
If there were any more kinky edges to my senses they were totally sorted out by the new power shower I’d had installed in the bathroom. There was nothing like a good cleansing blast to blow away the cobwebs and residual side-effects of goth flower poison. And it gave me some time to think and process.
Afterwards I was left with a mild headache and a feeling that my tongue had been lightly singed. I decided some paracetamol would sort that out and bring me up to 100 per cent, so went downstairs to get a glass of milk and line my stomach.
In the office/dining room, however, I found Monty and Sam deep in conversation and knew immediately from their expressions, which were dark and clouded, that they had been talking about something serious.
The agent was standing up, but leaning against one of the filing cabinets. This particular one had a stuffed barn owl and palmistry hand, amongst other items, displayed on the top. Monty had his hands in his pockets and despite the well-tailored formal suit, smart shiny shoes and immaculate shirt, was doing a good impression of looking leisured and languorous. He always had that look, like nothing ever freaked him. But, I suppose, with all the strangeness he encountered through his job, ordinary murder and whatnot were quite unexceptional.