by F. G. Cottam
She slipped off the stage and sat down and took a sip from her drink. She cast her eyes down at the floor. The shyness had come upon her again. All around her people were on their feet, roaring and stamping and clapping wildly in celebration of a gift so profound that to James it seemed more than merely human. He had not over the course of the evening drunk more than three or four beers, but he wondered in the intoxication of the moment if he had not just heard the singing of an angel.
Chapter Six
After the concert had concluded and the last drinks had been downed and the farewells said and the pub doors finally closed and locked, James knew that the sensible thing to do was to go to bed. He had the drive back to London the following day and it could not be done in less than four hours even in ideal road conditions. The weather forecast was good, but it took only one breakdown or collision on the eastbound carriageway of the A303 to cause substantial delay on that journey.
He did not go to bed. He remembered his phone conversation with the detective sergeant on the beach after his swim in the afternoon. Its detail and implications returned to him and brought with them anger and frustration he knew he had no way of resolving.
There was such a thing as natural justice. At least in theory, there was. But to a crime victim such as his son, it seemed destined to remain an abstract concept. There was little likelihood of any justice for Jack, natural or otherwise. Nobody was likely to be called to account. James was honest enough with himself to admit that what he really wanted was probably better described as retribution rather than justice. He wasn’t going to get that either, was he?
Perhaps it was a situation in which it was best simply to count his family’s blessings. If you believed the tabloid newspapers, gangs of feral youths on Britain’s council estates had respectable and industrious residents living in siege conditions. Emasculated police forces and impotent courts could do nothing to ease their predicament. These residents could not afford to escape the problems besetting them and blighting their lives.
He and his family could and were going to. Plus, he had stumbled by pure good fortune on a place that would enable them to live securely and even idyllically in a lovely location where the residents were apparently prepared to welcome them with a degree of spontaneous warmth as sincere as it was surprising.
He did not go to bed. He drank with Charlie Abraham from a bottle of brandy the landlord cracked before the dying embers of the fire. The label of the bottle was obscured by dust and very faded. But from the depth and complexity of the flavour when he sipped it, James suspected that it was an old and valuable vintage. He was flattered at the compliment. He was further flattered when Charlie asked if he would like to see the cache of letters sent to his ancestor by the poet pugilist Lord Byron.
The letters were written in his lordship’s admirably legible hand. They were informal in tone, witty and confidential and obviously genuine. They alluded a lot to the poet’s constant battle with his weight. Gregory had given him tips on the best exercise regimes for controlling it and it seemed to have been working and he was obviously grateful. There was quite a lot about boxing technique and James was reminded that Byron had been combative by nature, a soldier as well as a poet, a warrior determined to liberate Greece in a war of independence.
‘Did he ever come here?’
‘Yes, on two occasions. He stayed in the room I’ve given you.’
‘It was a hell of a way to come on a horse.’
‘Robust times, James. Robust men suited to those times. They thought nothing of it.’
‘It must give you such a sense of security, of belonging, being able to trace your ancestry back through the centuries in the one location. It’s becoming rarer, the way the world is now. People are so much more rootless. They’re not anchored in the same way.’
Charlie shifted his weight and his chair creaked under him. He replenished their drinks from the bottle between them on the table and looked at the greying embers of the fire. ‘It isn’t all Arcadian delight, James. Communities like this one have bad as well as good about them. You saw the good tonight.’
‘I certainly did. I heard an angel singing.’
Charlie smiled. ‘Or a siren,’ he said.
‘It was wonderful. It was unearthly, magical.’
‘You want to be careful how you apply those terms.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This is the west of England. There’s bad as well as good magic and there’re those as still practise it. You are an awfully long way from London, James. This is an ancient and remote corner of England. Not all of its traditions would look appealing held up to the light. And yet there are those who revel in them.’
‘Are you trying to warn me off?’
‘I told you, fresh blood is welcome here. That’s the truth. But you want to come here with your eyes open if you do come.’
James considered what he was being told. And he considered its source. He did not want to be rude. He thought that Charlie Abraham spoke sincerely and out of concern rather than contempt or hostility towards a stranger. ‘You believe in magic, Charlie? You actually believe in the supernatural?’
‘I understand you’ve seen a ghost of your own.’
James did not know what Charlie meant. Then he did. ‘The little girl I saw up at the stone circle the day before yesterday? I’m sure there is an explanation for her.’
‘I’m sure there is,’ Charlie said. ‘My fear is it is not one you would easily countenance.’
James drained his glass. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘I should go to bed.’ He nodded at the letters, carefully rolled now and put back in the cardboard sleeve that protected them. ‘Thank you for showing me those. They are fascinating.’
His anger over what DS McCabe had told him had gone, replaced by sympathy for the predicament faced by that dogged and principled police officer. McCabe had confided in Jack that he had joined the force to make a difference. He was prevented from doing so, probably on a daily basis, confronted by injustice at every turn. Jack would get over his physical injuries. James would get over his indignation at what had happened to his son. McCabe would go on being defeated by a self-serving and opportunistic industry that profited from championing the guilty.
He fumbled his phone out of his shirt pocket as he undressed. He had become quite drunk, he realised, on the brandy. Fatigue had played its part. Swimming in the sea was much more strenuous than swimming in a pool and he had subsequently stayed up, in the end, very late. He saw that someone had attempted to call him and recognised the number of the media rights agent he had engaged to help him market his computer game. Perhaps the fellow had positive news.
Dropping off to sleep, he thought about the landlord’s words of caution. They did not concern him. Not in the slightest, they didn’t. He’d take the Green Man and a witch’s curse and corn dollies and the Beast of Bodmin any day over what the Greer family were in the process of leaving behind.
It was playtime when Olivia Greer noticed her non-imaginary friend. She was outside the school railings over by the main gate. She was just standing there in her purple and grey uniform, her blonde hair falling in braids to either side of her straw hat. It was a bright morning and the sun on the brim of the hat cast her face into shadow. Olivia could not see what expression her face wore and she stood there perfectly still. But she wanted Olivia to go over and talk to her. She looked somehow nervous, like someone who has made a decision they are not at all sure about. Her fists were clenched. Olivia went over slowly, thinking that if she ran, the girl might change her mind and turn and flee.
Olivia was pretty sure by now that the girl was a ghost. She had never seen anyone else wearing that uniform. She did not think the girl could have got into her bedroom in the normal way, by walking through the front door and up the stairs, without her mum or brother noticing. She did not think any of the other children in the playground could see the girl. In fact, she was sure they could not. The girl was here for her. This realis
ation did not frighten Olivia. It just made her all the more curious.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi.’
‘My name is Madeleine.’
‘That’s a lovely name.’
‘You are kind to say so.’
‘My name is Olivia.’
‘I know.’
‘You are a ghost, aren’t you?’
‘You must not be afraid.’
‘I’m not. But when people are alive, their eyes are coloured. Yours are blank.’
‘Once they were blue, like yours.’
‘When you were alive?’
‘Yes, Olivia. They were blue when I was alive.’
Olivia nodded. There were some things she did not need to be told. There were some things she just knew. She knew that had she met this girl in the normal way, they would have been friends. They might have been best friends who kept one another’s secrets and never argued and lent one another their most precious things. She knew that the girl had died at the age she was now. She had never grown up. And she knew that Madeleine had been killed. Her death had been deliberate. Olivia knew that her daddy would have called Madeleine’s death a crime. She had been murdered.
‘You are clever, Olivia. I think you are much cleverer than I was.’
‘We shall never know.’
‘You must be brave, also. You must listen carefully and remember to do what I ask you to.’
Olivia wasn’t afraid. But there were things about Madeleine that were scary, even in the sunshine, even though she gave her compliments and was nice. Her blank eyes were scary but her voice was scary too. There was a sort of echo to it as though it had come a long way, through a tunnel maybe, to be heard. And her mouth was dark. When she opened it, there was nothing to see beyond the shape of her lips but blackness. And the blackness seemed deep. It reached a lot further than the root of a living person’s tongue.
Smart from a distance, the uniform she wore was worn and musty close to, its colours faded and drab and the fabric threadbare. The straw of her hat was so thinly woven in places it showed the dusty yellow of her hair. And her clenched fists were not exactly still. She did not move them. But something maggoty moved them anyway, writhing under their skin.
She’s doing her best, Olivia understood suddenly. Being here is a struggle for her but she is doing her very best because she wants to help me somehow. She is here only because I am in danger and the fact that she has managed to come at all means the danger must be very great.
‘Gosh, you really are clever.’
‘Not as clever as you, Madeleine, you can read my thoughts.’
The ghost in front of Olivia nodded. ‘You will be moving quite soon to live somewhere new. I think you know something about this already.’
‘Am I in danger if I go?’
‘There is no question of if. You are going. Some things are meant and you are meant to go. I am going to tell you about something you must look for and find when you get there. I do not know exactly where it is. But there will be clues and you are sharp enough to follow them. Follow the clues. Find the thing hidden. Show it to your father.’
‘What is this thing?’
The ghost called Madeleine seemed to hesitate. For the second time, Olivia sensed her nervousness, as though she was unsure about what she was doing. Yet the effort involved in her coming at all had been enormous. Olivia was aware of that, too.
Madeleine told her what the hidden thing was.
Olivia nodded. Then she said, ‘Was your death a painful one?’
Madeleine nodded back. ‘My death was sad and horrid,’ she said. Then she turned and in the bright sunlight, as Olivia watched, she withered away and was gone.
James slept later than he would have ordinarily. He awoke only at eight fifteen. During his last Leeward Arms breakfast, he decided that he would go and look at the ruined church of Lillian’s illustration before his departure. Partly he resolved to do this because he did not think it could look anything like as sinister in life as she had depicted it upon the page. Partly it was because he had slept on Charlie Abraham’s veiled warning and decided, having done so, not to ignore it completely.
If there were dark and malevolent aspects to Brodmaw Bay they were better confronted before his family’s arrival. He did not really think there were. He was not much of a believer in anything irrational. But he thought he ought to take a look, just to be able to say later that he had done so. And he could think of nothing more menacing about the place than his wife’s painting of the stark ruin that had once been a place of worship.
Over breakfast, he rang his agent. And he was delivered the intriguing news that a games company based in Colorado was expressing considerable interest in finally formatting his prototype and bringing it into production on a global scale.
‘You’ll have to go and see them, James.’
‘I will, of course, though to be honest, Lee, this is not the best time.’
‘This could be a life-changer, Jimmy. They call a meeting, I book you a flight. They’re a start-up outfit, but with pedigree running right through the senior staff. We’re talking software aristocracy with Silicon Valley lineage. These guys are very seriously capitalised. They’re perfect for you. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
He walked to the church. He got there at ten thirty, at the exact time that his daughter was walking across a Bermondsey schoolyard to converse with a pale and threadbare apparition who had once been a little girl called Madeleine Gleason.
The gravestones of the churchyard beyond the gate were canted at odd angles, just as they had been in Lillian’s picture. In that, the churchyard had been snowy. It was summer now. Shadows were deep in the low sunlight. The angles of the granite and marble headstones suggested subsidence, which was a grim thought given the number and age of the graves. A resting place for the dead should not suffer such upheaval, James thought, lifting the latch on the gate and stepping on to the gravel path beyond.
The path was slick in places with patches of moss. They were still damp from the dew of the night. Tall surrounding trees, in full leaf, meant that the graveyard lay in gloomy shadow. This lack of light seemed to have leached the colour out of the wild grass and weeds erupting between the graves. The vegetation had a pale, anaemic character.
Its broken door on its twisted hinges gave the church itself a violated look. Beyond the door was only blackness. James had expected beams of light penetrating through those gaps where the roof had been stripped for reclaimed slates or lead with a high scrap value. But it seemed that the roof of the church was intact.
He found himself not really wanting to go inside. Doing so meant twisting on his hands and knees, squirming under the angle of the smashed, obstructing door. His instinct was to stay on his feet with his arms free to protect himself. His senses insisted this was a hostile, dangerous place. His skin had begun to crawl with the swing of the gate as soon as he released the latch and set foot on the churchyard path. He could feel raised goose bumps coarsening his skin and his breathing had become shallow as his heart rate grew more rapid.
It was very quiet. There was no sound of birdsong. He looked around. It was very still there, too. There was no breeze at all. It was as though, on its abandoned plot, this place existed entirely separate to the rest of the locality. Nothing connected it. No one came here, James realised, the thought defeating, abject almost. It was a place of faith exiled and distress ignored. Prayers went unanswered and the ground writhed slyly in rejection of the dead.
He smiled to himself and rapped a tattoo on the oak solidity of the canted door, as if the resultant smart to his knuckles could distract him from the strange thoughts beginning to occupy his mind. He was at the entrance to a deconsecrated church. It was a derelict building, nothing more or less than that, bricks and mortar, stained glass and empty pews, flowers dead in petrified tribute, hymns for ever unsung.
He was doing it again. It was ridiculous. He stooped and scrambled in under the door and saw the seate
d spectres in their pews and almost screamed before his eyes adjusted to the absence of light and he made sense of what he was looking at; a sight that, actually, made no sense to him at all.
Burlap sacks had been placed on the benches in their rows. They were each bound by wound loops of ancient twine and sagged with age. He gained the aisle and walked along it towards the high altar, the sacks to the right and left of him, slumped and silent, stored and forgotten.
Was this some act of rustic sacrilege? It was very strange and obscure if it was. He did not think it could be. He reached for one of the sacks. Its top had been sewn neatly shut in the manner of an old-fashioned mail bag. The substance of the bag itself was coarse and strong. Time had not made the fabric weak. Then again, he did not know how much time had elapsed since this strange cargo had been stored. He lifted and hefted the bag. Its contents slipped as he did so, heavy and inert. It landed with a muffled clatter when he put it back down again. He dusted his hands together.
He kept on walking towards the high altar. He counted the sacks as he did so. There were nineteen of them. The altarpiece was marble. There was a tabernacle at its centre, bronze and greenish with mould. It had a double door, modelled, James thought, probably on the entrance to some biblical temple of which he should have heard but had not. He was agnostic, hardly a scholar of comparative religions. Lillian shared his lack of faith. They had not even had their children baptised.
He opened the tabernacle doors, which parted with a creak. He did so with the sensation that eyes studied him from behind but knew that this was his imagination. There was no living thing in the church besides him. Foul air escaped in a salty stench of tidal rot as the bronze doors parted. The tabernacle was substantial, about two feet high and when he opened the doors, about the same depth. It was not empty. Within its gloomy interior lay a large sea crab.
The crab was black and its claws huge and bony and it had been there for a long time and James thought that its lurking presence there was sacrilege. This creature had not died drowning in air, netted and beached. The violent manner of its death was still visible in the iron spike protruding from its back. If its presence there was a joke, it was a spiteful and possibly blasphemous joke. James did know that Christianity in its early years had possessed many metaphors to do with fish. The Disciples, most of them, had been fishermen. Jesus Christ had been described in one of the Gospels as a fisher of men.