Darkness Rises

by Jason Foss

  ‘So?’

  ‘As I was saying, she isn’t the sort of girl I would forget. Across there in the museum is a man who is trying to make out he hardly knows her.’

  ‘And you’ve proof he does?’

  ‘I phoned her mother. She told me that last summer, Lucy was up here all the time. In the autumn, she would be at the museum almost every weekend, working on her dissertation. I know he helped her with her work, I have the proof. Then, all of a sudden, he’s pretending this never happened and she writes him out of her acknowledgements.’

  Flint reached into his briefcase and took out the dissertation. ‘Read this.’

  Vikki started the first page, then said ‘I’ll take your word for it, I mean, it’s clear what went on.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘They had an affair,’ she said. ‘She’s embarrassed, because he’s so much older than she is, as well as being a nerd. He’s embarrassed...’

  ‘Why? Most dirty old men would brag about it.’

  Reporter looked at archaeologist and their thoughts married.

  ‘See why I’m worried?’ Flint asked.

  She sucked in her well-blushed cheeks and nodded.

  ‘He’s a spooky guy and evasive as hell. He’s got guilty tattooed on his forehead.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Vikki said slowly, ‘I was right, don’t you know, I was right. He’s done her in. She’s ended the affair and he’s done her in.’

  ‘Wait!’ Flint objected, a look of intense pain meeting the suggestion. ‘Remember the phone call, the cards?’

  ‘He could have faked them.’

  ‘No. She used a pet name for her sister, called her “Ba”. It’s nothing that sinister, but I think he knows where Lucy is, and he’s covering it up. Otherwise why the act?’

  Vikki was unconvinced; all her gory scenarios were coming true. Sex, jealousy and murder, with a little eccentric colour at the edges meant she could skip cat shows for the rest of that month. She slowly folded her notepad and slipped her pen into its spine. ‘Is he still there?’

  ‘He hasn’t come out.’

  Vikki downed her drink, then said ‘Come on.’

  She was on her feet before him, and waiting by the kerbside before he caught up with her. Once a bus had passed, they jogged across to the rose garden, the scent of new-mown grass hitting them as soon as the diesel fumes had subsided. From her leather handbag, Vikki withdrew her Dictaphone and gave Jeffrey Flint a smile.

  ‘Promise me you’re not mucking me about.’

  ‘Vikki, would I muck you about?’

  ‘People do.’

  Flint led the way into the museum, and the attendant looked up. ‘Hello again.’

  ‘Is the curator in?’ Flint asked.

  ‘He’s left for the day, sir.’

  ‘Shit.’ A plastic stegosaurus bounced onto the floor as Flint’s fist thumped on to the table.

  ‘He can’t have gone,’ Vikki felt cheated. ‘What do the ratepayers get for their money?’

  ‘He said he was ill, miss. Just before noon. It seems there’s something going round.’

  ‘Have you got a back door?’ Vikki asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the attendant pointed under the stairs, ‘but I’m afraid it leads to the staff car park, you can’t leave that way.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave!’ she snapped. ‘I suppose he sneaked out that way just now. Does he have a car? What make is it?’

  The attendant straightened his back, looking down at her with an air of mistrust. ‘It’s one of those Russian things.’

  ‘What ­– a Lada, Skoda?’

  ‘A Skoda, miss, a green one.’

  ‘I suppose he drove off just after I left?’ Flint asked quietly.

  The attendant looked wary and reluctant to answer.

  ‘Look, is there anyone else we can see?’ Vikki asked. ‘Does he have an assistant?’

  ‘Is there a deputy curator?’ Flint added.

  ‘No, not for a number of years.’ The attendant was clearly on his guard, looking from one to the other. ‘There’s been cuts…’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Vikki, ‘I’m from the Advertiser. We’re writing a piece about the museum.’ She turned on her Dictaphone and gave the old man a lingering smile. ‘So, your name is?’

  ‘George Carlyle.’

  Soon after joining her first newspaper, Vikki had learned that few can resist being interviewed. Whether politician or man-in-the-street, their ego jumps when a microphone or a notepad is pointed their way.

  ‘So, George, there’s just you and Mister Plant in this great big museum?’

  ‘No, there’s Carol, the cleaner, young Tom the technician and my relief, Jack. We get people in from the County when there’s anything big on.’

  ‘Does the curator live near here?’ Vikki suddenly asked.

  ‘On the edge of town.’

  ‘Could I have his address?’ Vikki spread her puce lips wide as the man accepted her pen and began to write. ‘Thank you ­– you’re so sweet.’

  *

  Vikki owned a scarlet Mini Metro and Flint accompanied her to Plant’s address. She drove sedately, but had an alarming habit of waving both hands and looking him in the eye whilst talking and driving. Her own eyes were shielded by those deep black shades and he was convinced she could see nothing through them.

  Red-brick suburbs of Kingshaven gave way to a satellite straggle of bungalows and gentrified cottages. Just as the houses began to thin, an unadopted lane ran off towards the river from the main road. Piers Plant lived with his mother, in the fourth of a line of six square nineteen-twenties bungalows. When the Metro drew to a halt, there was no green Skoda on the gravel drive.

  Mrs Plant came to the window as they knocked, then came to the side door only with reluctance. Old and grey, her manner was suspicious and diffident.

  ‘Is Piers at home?’ Flint asked.

  ‘Now, I not seen ‘im.’ Mrs Plant displayed her slow regional drawl as she blocked entrance to her home.

  ‘George at the museum said he’d come home,’ Vikki said in sympathy with the familiar tone adopted by Flint.

  ‘Not seen ‘im, my dear.’

  Was it deceit, or simply defiance Flint saw in her eyes? ‘Would you mind if we waited for him?’

  ‘I be going out,’ she said as a reply, which was as good as a refusal.

  ‘Mrs Plant, I’m from the Advertiser,’ Vikki began.

  The old woman frowned.

  ‘I’m working on an article on Piers and the museum.’

  Vikki was still speaking as the door closed and a chain rattled into place. Two bolts followed.

  ‘Wrong move,’ Flint observed.

  ‘Mrs Plant!’ Vikki tapped on the door.

  Flint was walking back towards the Metro. ‘Come on, we’re wasting our time.’

  As usual, he thought.

  Vikki’s face was clouded and angry as she strode back down the ill-sorted gravel. ‘She’s lying, don’t you think? She’s covering up as well.’

  The archaeologist raised a tired smile. ‘Could you run me to the train?’

  Vikki assented, urging him to get in the car. ‘I’ll drive you to your train, but then I’m coming back. He’s got to come home some time.’

  Chapter 6

  Rowan paced across the room, her arms folded, her thin lips set into an almost invisible line. In the wing-backed armchair, Piers Plant gripped the armrests for support as he waited to be told what to do.

  ‘Whatever came into you?’ Her anger was plain, and all he wanted was understanding. Rowan reached the window and looked down into the passageway below, verifying again that no one had followed the curator.

  Piers Plant strained his neck so he might check too, feeling as if he was pursued by demons. In some respects, he was.

  ‘He came.’

  ‘Who?’

  He related the intrusion by Jeffrey Flint in detail.

  ‘He knows everything.’

  ‘Oak, you’re being ridiculous. He
knows nothing, Hazel has been careless, that’s all. He knows nothing, understand?’

  Why was she never sympathetic? Where had his lovely Rowan found this hard and cruel edge? Plant thought back to February, his muddled mind fighting the idea that the change had been his fault.

  ‘Flint came back, with a girl. Then they went to my house. I think it was that reporter.’

  ‘Vikki Corbett?’

  ‘I’ve seen her before.’ Plant fidgeted his feet on her hand-woven rug. Rowan simply glared at him. ‘I know what she’s going to do, she’s going to write something hideous, lying, dirty.’ He stopped speaking and cupped his hands.

  ‘Go back to work,’ Rowan said. ‘Just go back and try to behave normally. Can you manage that? Can you behave like a rational person?’

  ‘I can’t go back,’ he stated, breathing in and out heavily. ‘I can’t, I just can’t.’ He felt he was being overcome, a red tide of confusion was swamping his brain, blotting out all his ability to act, to speak, to think. Then she slapped him.

  ‘Toad!’

  She slapped him again. ‘Weasel!’

  Plant held his cheek, suddenly shocked into clear thought.

  ‘You have no option.’

  His lips felt so dry, he needed a drink for his burning throat. Rowan was his closest friend ­– she must be trying to help, anything else was impossible. Once his breathing was under control he became more resolute. ‘I could face Flint if he came back. I could face that reporter girl, but if they go to the police... I can’t face the police.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Rowan’s voice softened and she knelt before him, her touch on his lower arm was motherly and compulsive. She dug in her fingers as she urged him again. ‘Just go back and tell them the truth about last summer and the autumn. You committed no crime. You helped a student with her work, that was all.’

  ‘No.’ A plan was already forming in his mind. ‘I’ve got to get away.’

  ‘Go on holiday.’

  ‘I can’t...’

  ‘Well, ring in sick, go stay with your aunt or something.’

  He nodded, thinking. A slow gleam came to his face, the plan solidifying amongst the chaos of his thoughts. He said, ‘Yes,’ but not in response to her suggestion.

  ‘Good. Where are you going?’

  Plant looked at her, having hardly heard what she had said. ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t tell anyone.’ He shook free from her arm and stood up. ‘You have to understand.’

  ‘Oak?’ Rowan rose to her feet.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ He dodged towards the door.

  Rowan moved to block his exit. ‘Where?’

  He put a finger to his lips. ‘Secret. Trust me, Rowan, I have a plan, everything will be all right. I only have to break the spell.’

  ‘Spell?’ She allowed him to pass her.

  Plant took hold of the door handle. ‘Ring the museum for me, tell them I’m sick.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ she repeated, without question.

  Piers Plant left the room, and put whatever plan he had devised into immediate operation. To those seeking him, his disappearance was as sudden and as total as that of Lucy Gray.

  *

  ‘No one has seen him,’ Vikki’s voice moaned from the telephone. ‘He hasn’t been home, he hasn’t been to work and I can’t even get the police to look for him.’

  ‘I’m out of ideas, Vikki,’ Flint said.

  ‘You must be able to find out something else.’

  ‘You’re the thrusting investigative reporter, I’m simply a boring old academic.’

  ‘Well, use that great big brain of yours to give me an idea.’

  Flint squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He was too busy to delve deeper into Lucy’s history. He had submitted a paste-up of her dissertation, with a hopeful covering note, but that was all he felt he could do.

  ‘Okay, try this. Lucy vanishes completely. Piers Plant vanishes completely. Let’s draw up a hypothesis which says they are both in the same place.’

  Vikki was quiet for some time; a novelty, felt Flint.

  ‘That doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?’ she said.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it does.’

  She rang off with only the briefest farewell, and Flint put his attention back towards a large-scale map of Hertfordshire which covered his desk. Examinations had thrown a suffocating blanket of silence over Central College. Angst-ridden students had to be placated and last minute crises over question papers had to be addressed. As a distraction from exams, and from Lucy, he had Burkes Warren to occupy his attention.

  For the past three summers, Flint had directed a small research excavation on a fourth-century villa in Hertfordshire. At least, it had always been assumed to be fourth century, evidence was still rather patchy. Digging took place partly under the excuse that the site was threatened by deep-ploughing, partly to enhance Flint’s credibility as a hands-on archaeologist. What he really wanted to know was the kind of settlement which had preceded the villa during his pet period, the third century?

  Twenty-four applicants sought the ten places on the digging team, all willing to work for free, keen beggars. One application had been posted in south London. Flint slit open the long manila envelope and unfolded the message.

  ‘My name is Death. Dig for me and I will welcome you.’

  His mouth dried. He read the letter again, then spent some minutes re-reading it, examining the envelope and fighting back a mix of anger and fear. Only one person was mad enough to send such a bizarre death threat. Flint peered into the envelope, half expecting to find something else, thinking about the quivering curator in Kingshaven. Vikki’s theory that Lucy had met an unpleasant end suddenly became credible. Piers Plant was capable of anything.

  In a fit of angry energy, Flint cleared his desk of archaeological work and brought out the Lucy file. Assembling all the facts linking Plant and Lucy, Flint dictated a long memo to the Darkewater Valley constabulary for Sally to type and post. Perhaps, there was an off-chance they might take some action.

  *

  After she had finished speaking to Jeffrey Flint, Vikki laid down the telephone and slumped into her chair. All around, the noisome, noisy newsroom clattered with life. On the screen of her word processor was half a story, which hung off four alternative headlines.

  MUSEUM CURATOR VANISHES

  CURATOR SOUGHT IN MISSING GIRL CASE

  LUCY GRAY WITNESS SOUGHT

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

  Of course, she couldn’t use any of them, Arnold the editor had said so. Facts, not libel, he had demanded. Her half-story of the vanishing curator was incomplete without someone showing alarm. The Museums Service were satisfied he was ringing in sick. His mother stood unruffled by his absence and no-one else seemed to care. Vikki reviewed the lists of relatives, friends and social contacts of Piers Plant she had visited. Each added a little to what she knew. Plant was insular and had few, if any, real friends. He had been divorced seven years previously, and from then had been increasingly withdrawn into his work. The museum was his home, and apparently, his only remaining love. He was odd, no-one confessed to knowing where he was and no- one admitted to wanting to, either.

  ‘Vikki, five minutes?’ Vince, who was both photographer and self-appointed office stud, called across the room.

  Bloody stupid Lord Mayor, who cared if he was going to pull a ribbon and say something boring at the golf club? Vikki drained her cup of cold coffee in a mood of high irritation. If Vince tried to ask her out again, she would scream sexual harassment. She saved her file, then pushed her heap of notes marked ‘Gray Case’ into a drawer. Unhooking her handbag from the chair back, she went to meet the Mayor.

  The ceremony at the golf club was only the beginning of a slow week. A Durring Tech student took an overdose (but recovered). A gang of youths set fire to three plastic litter bins in the centre of Kingshaven and evaded six policemen. The New Bridge at Twinbridge was clos
ed for repairs to its parapet. Life was tough at the sharp end of local journalism. She fantasised that if she was forced to get very drunk that Friday night, she might just give Vince a chance to live up to his boasts. Life was getting bad if she had to stoop to that quality of excitement.

  At the end of the week, the morning post brought an impersonal rejection of her application to become a staff reporter at the Daily Mirror. On reaching the office, Arnold the editor mumbled about wild geese and seemed to be planning to move her to the ghetto of the women’s page. Vikki reached her grey laminated workstation and placed her hand on the telephone, glancing at the wall clock, wondering what time lecturers woke up and what time they turned up for work. Just after ten, she caught him.

  ‘How is my favourite archaeologist?’ she crooned.

  ‘Busy. I’m up to my ears in exam scripts and death threats.’

  ‘You’re joking about the death threats?’

  ‘I wish I was.’ Flint explained about his letter, Vikki immediately insisting she see it.

  ‘I’ll send you a photocopy; the police have the original. What are they doing on the Lucy front?’

  ‘Nothing; too busy chasing teenage arsonists and letting them get away.’ Vikki paused, wondering where Flint’s weak point lay.

  ‘That letter really fazed me for a while,’ he admitted.

  Enough of his background had emerged during her enquiries for Vikki to make shrewd judgements about his character. Flint was a committed bachelor, who fitted well into the free-and-easy college scene. He liked old films, sixties music and open relationships with women. Like all academics he had a large and very vulnerable ego.

  Flint was still talking over the macabre letter when she interrupted him...

  ‘I need you,’ she appealed.

  ‘Need me?’

  ‘I need you to do me an interview. I need something to hang a story on.’

  ‘A coat peg?’

  ‘You, tomorrow, please? I can get you the train fare and I’ll buy you lunch. How’s that for a proposition?’

  ‘Sounds okay,’ he said after a few seconds.

  ‘I thought we might try and see that doorman from the museum too.’

  *

  After the surprise arrangement had been made, Flint made his way to the J.B. Stoat Library, thinking partly of Lucy, partly of Vikki. He liked the reporter’s spirit, even if she possessed an irritating over-abundance. Whether she was soft-soaping him, or whether she was sincere, the call had made him feel good, and it would be nice not to have another train fare to pay. He was still musing whether the Advertiser paid appearance fees when his arm was touched by another man.