by Phil Rickman
So when Marcus saw, from a distance, the vehicle parked in the shadow of the outer curtain wall, his hackles rose faster than Malcolm’s. He was in no mood to explain to some cretinous family that no, there wasn’t a bloody ice cream stand.
However, the vehicle under the wall turned out to be a Land Rover, which suggested a local person. Possibly a patient. The Castle was remote enough from the village for most of Mrs Willis’s patients to come by car.
Or it could be the doctor. Well, God knows, he had no time for these bloody state-registered drug-dealers, especially after their fumbling failure to save Celia. But the local fellow was less offensive than most and, after all, you didn’t have to go along with what they prescribed.
Perhaps Mrs Willis had seen the sense of it. Healer, heal thyself wasn’t always the best philosophy.
Stepping into the hall, he heard voices from the Healing Room. Must be a patient; Mrs Willis wouldn’t embarrass the doctor by having him examine her amidst her pots and jars of natural potions. Dammit, she wasn’t fit to see patients. But what could you do? What could you do with Mrs Willis?
Marcus tramped into the kitchen, dumped the kettle on the Rayburn. She’d laid out his mail in a neat pile on the old pine table. He hooked out a wooden chair with his foot. Phone bill and two letters from Phenomenologist correspondents. He recognized the cramped handwriting of Miss Pinder, the crazed spiritualist from Chiswick. The other was a foolscap envelope, postmarked Pembrokeshire. Sure he knew the writing, but he couldn’t quite place it. He sighed and slit the envelope with a butter knife.Dear Mr Bacton,Well, it’s been some months since you’ve heard from me, but I’ve been away. I trust you are staying out of trouble with the Ancient Monuments people over the state of your castle. Perhaps I shall see it one day. Now, I know you are a busy man, so I shall contain my Celtic urge to gabble on, and come straight to the point. There is a pressing matter with which I hope you may be able to assist me. We have a murderer in our midst.
What the bloody hell …?Now, there’s melodramatic, isn’t it?But before you dismiss it, in that delightfully brusque way of yours, as delusion, please peruse the enclosed cutting.
Oh God. Marcus closed and opened his eyes. Cindy the bloody Shaman.
Reached for a mug with his left hand, holding the shelf in place with his right.
Insane theatrical biddy who lived in a caravan in Pembrokeshire.
Only the word delusion kept him reading. Falconer had used deluded in connection with the blessed Annie Davies. Hate to think that anyone — even Cindy the bloody Shaman — might have cause to consider Marcus Bacton as small-minded as Falconer.… and so, naturally, I was most distressed by young Maria’s death and would have been only too relieved if the police had identified some local yob as the perpetrator of the crime. Yet it was clear to me from the first that it was not going to be so easy. I could not stop thinking about the death of William Rufus, as explained so well by Dr Margaret Murray in her wonderful book, which I am sure you have on your shelves…
Of course. Classic work. Murray had identified William as the Divine Victim. A king dying for his country. The ultimate human sacrifice. But only Cindy the Shaman could equate the historic slaying with the murder of a hunt saboteur some eight hundred years later.… here, I felt, was a killer with a strong sense of earth-ritual, and the only proof I required — for myself — was evidence that this person had struck again. I began to monitor the newspapers, searching for any death that could be strongly linked to its location … crimes committed in places of ancient significance. Wherever I travelled, I scoured the local papers for details that the national press would not have the space to include. I came across the attached report in the west Wales edition of the Western Mail.
Marcus unfolded the cutting.
BIKE BOY MAIMED IN HORROR TRAPA 14-year-old boy was in hospital with horrific facial injuries last night, after riding his motorcycle into a brutal, barbed-wire ‘man trap’ on a lonely mid-Wales hilltop.A police investigation is under way to find out who stretched a double strand of the wire between a fence post and a tree across a track regularly used by motorcycle scramblers. Schoolboy scrambler Gareth Wigley rode round a blind bend and directly into the wire. Surgeons are fighting to save his left eye.A Dyfed-Powys Policespokesman said, ‘He is very lucky to have survived. This was a calculated attempt to maim or even kill.’Some local people have protested that the ancient track, in the Elan Valley, near Rhayader, is being destroyed by weekend scramblers, and the injured boy’s father, farmer Bryn Wigley, 48, said, ‘Some of these so-called conservationists are completely insane.’The track, said to have been used by medieval monks walking between the abbeys of Cymhir and Strata Florida …
The last lines were highlighted with what looked suspiciously like yellow greasepaint.
Between the text and a photograph of the angry father holding a strand of barbed wire, the Western Mail had provided a little map, showing the exact location of the trap, on the edge of an oak wood. A line had been drawn across it in black eyebrow pencil, and Cindy had scrawled, Get out your OS maps, Mr Bacton. All right, nobody dead this time, but if it had been a grown man on that bike, the wire would have had his head off, no question.
The tin kettle shrieked on the stove, just about echoing what was going on in Marcus’s head. Was he really supposed to print this creepy woman’s fantasies? The Miss Pinders would think The Phenomenologist had metamorphosed into the bloody News of the World.
With the noise of the kettle, he almost missed the discreet creak of the Healing Room door across the passage. Dived to the door just in time to spot the young chap with tousled, tawny hair — moving pretty damn silently for someone with such a hefty physique — trying to creep out unseen.
‘Bloody hell. ‘ Marcus was out of his chair, the school-master in him exploding to the surface. ‘You! Boy! ‘
The outgoing patient stopped.
‘Come here,’ Marcus demanded.
The face came round the kitchen door looking stupidly embarrassed.
‘Ah. Mr Bacton. It’s you.’
‘Who the fuck you think it is? This is where I live.’
‘Ah. Yes. Course it is. Sorry.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing in my house? Sent you to spy, has he?’
‘Well, actually …’ Adrian Fraser-Hale, Falconer’s resident boy scout, shuffled about in the kitchen doorway. ‘I came to consult Mrs Willis. I have this sort of skin problem, and the lady in the pub said-’
‘Skin problem? Fucking thick skin problem, if you ask me!’
‘No, it’s a sort of psoriasis.’ The boy turned sideways and pulled his collar down, revealing an area of pink and white blotches. ‘From the ear to the top of the neck. Itches frightfully.’
‘God save us.’ Marcus raised his eyes to the worm-ridden oak beams. The rash was probably the remains of adolescence. Young Fraser-Hale had the body of a man and the air of a sixth-former — the sort who was a natural captain of the first fifteen but lacked the dignity to make head boy.
‘Actually, Roger doesn’t know I’m here. I don’t suppose he’d be awfully pleased. I mean, I’ve been to the doctor and a couple of chemists, and they all go on about allergies and elimination tests which could take, you know, yonks. Meanwhile the thing just grows, like some sort of alien lichen, and, well, Roger wasn’t too keen on me appearing on the box looking like this.’
‘Oh good heavens, no, mustn’t have anyone epidermically challenged on the Roger Falconer programme.’
‘And the lady in the pub told me how Mrs Willis had cured her of a fairly vile rash, so …’
‘Yes, all right, I get the picture.’
The boy was so painfully sincere it was hard to imagine how he managed to work with Falconer.
Fraser-Hale said, ‘I didn’t mean to be surreptitious or anything.’
‘No, all right. Just the old girl gets tired. She’s … not young, and while she might think she’s pretty fit, I’m trying to discourage people from just
turning up.’
Marcus stopped talking and waited for Fraser-Hale to go, but the boy just stood there, looking uncomfortable and fingering his psoriasis.
‘Actually, Mr Bacton, if I could just say … I mean, what happened this morning, and the bad feeling between you and Roger. I’m really frightfully divided about all that. Because, you know, I’m rather more on your side of the fence than his. And I think you’re absolutely right about Black Knoll …’
‘High Knoll.’
‘Yes, of course. I think it was probably the pivotal terrestrial power-centre for this whole area. I mean, one only has to spend time there, put one’s hands on the stone. So I’m … well, I … I think Roger’s wrong to fence it off and try to keep it for himself. I just wanted to tell you that.’
‘Well, it’s, er, good to know that you’re not all tarred with the same brush over at Cefn-y-bedd.’ A thought struck him. ‘You didn’t tell Mrs Willis about what happened this morning, did you?’
‘Oh dear.’ Adrian Fraser-Hale looked bereft. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Bacton. You see, I thought you’d have already told her.’
‘No,’ said Marcus, ‘I’m afraid I was in a bit of a state. Wanted to walk off the er … before I broke the news.’
‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘Not your fault. I suppose I was avoiding it.’
Fuck.
Mrs Willis liked to rest after a healing session, so Marcus waited half an hour before popping his head around the door.
‘All right, old love?’
She was lying on her daybed, a copy of her beloved People’s Friend by her side.
‘Sorry,’ he said inadequately. ‘I mean, you know …’
‘I knew there was something when you didn’t come back.’ Her face creasing, activating a thousand wrinkles. The old dear had started to look her age almost overnight. It was frightening.
‘I really am sorry,’ Marcus said. ‘Perhaps it’s all my fault. Perhaps if I’d got down on one knee to the fellow from the start. I’m going to talk to the County Council anyway. He can’t bar that footpath, he doesn’t own the meadow. And there must be some way we can stop him fencing it off.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mrs Willis.
‘It doesn’t matter? ‘
This was how she’d been for nearly a week. Not bothered about anything. Pale, listless. Dried up. Etiolated. No-one who saw her now would even recognize the bustling widow who’d turned up at the door, having come by bus and walked over a mile after his advertisement for a cleaner.
Cleaner. Ha. Much later, Marcus had discovered that the crafty old soul had made a few inquiries about him, discovered that here was a retired man with no practical skills to speak of but an undying interest in the Mysterious. And a house that was far too big for him: lots of room for jars and potions.
‘Don’t do this to me, old love,’ Marcus said. ‘You know it matters like hell that you won’t be able to go to the Knoll.’
Remembering how unutterably moved he’d been when he’d introduced her to the Knoll. When she’d stood by the burial chamber in silence, taking several long, slow breaths before declaring that he was right, it was special, it had a healing air. And, by God, she knew how to use it. How to focus it and channel it and pass it on. Look at the Anderson woman …
‘I never told you,’ Mrs Willis said in that dreamy way she sometimes had. ‘But I saw a black light.’
‘You saw what? ‘
What remained of the English teacher in him restrained itself from pointing out that you couldn’t actually have a black light. This was no time for bloody semantics.
‘Tell me, old love,’ he said. ‘When was this?’
‘What’s that?’
‘When? When did you see this …?’
‘Last Thursday night, would it be?’
‘You went at night? You shouldn’t be going out at bloody night! I didn’t see you go.’
Mrs Willis smiled the old sweet smile. ‘You’re a sound sleeper, boy.’
‘At night? I don’t understand.’ Bewilderment and panic jostling one another in his chest. ‘What’s going on? Bloody hell, Mrs Willis, that’s why you’ve been off colour, is it?’
‘Not been much of a housekeeper, have I?’
‘Forget that. Jesus Christ-’
‘Marcus!’
‘Sorry. Look. Just tell me. This black light. What d’you mean a “black light”? How can you see a black light at night? What are we talking about here? Was it some premonition about Falconer? Why did you see Fraser-Hale? What did he tell you? What’s going on?’
Mrs Willis just sat there with her back to the matchboard wall and the rickety shelves supporting the old lady’s herbs and potions in jam jars and ancient Marmite pots.
‘Falling apart,’ said Mrs Willis wryly, following his eyes.
‘What did you do for young Fraser-Hale?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Fraser-Hale. Falconer’s lad.’
‘That boy? I said I’d make him some ointment. I advised hot baths in Epsom salts and told him to boil his meat first. It’s only a rash.’
‘Pity you can’t poison his bloody boss.’
‘Never say that,’ Mrs Willis said sternly. ‘It’ll come back on you, boy.’
‘I’d swing for that man.’
She observed him shrewdly through her pebble glasses. ‘You’re saying I shouldn’t treat that boy because he works for a man you don’t like? I would treat Mr Falconer himself, if he was in need.’
‘You’re a bloody saint, Mrs Willis. And unfortunately I’m never going to reach your stage of spiritual development. I’d push the bastard off a cliff I mean, why is he doing this to us? Is it just bloody spite, because I’ve been slagging him off in a little sodding rag nobody ever reads?’
‘Perhaps you should be grateful to him for fencing it off.’
‘What’s that mean? What d’you mean by a black light? A sense of evil? For Christ’s sake, old love, that’s what the Church tried to say when the child had her vision. I’ve spent years trying to knock all that on the head. Is that what you mean?’
‘I’m tired.’ Mrs Willis picked up her People’s Friend. ‘I think I shall finish my story.’
VII
The minute she reached home, Grayle dived at the answering machine, as she did every night, in case there should be a message from Ersula.
God, Grayle, I’m so sorry. Time just goes so fast when you’re absorbed in research. I looked at the calendar and I just couldn’t believe it was six whole weeks since I wrote … Can you forgive me?
This never happened.
The only message tonight was a fax from her sometimes-friend, Rosita, New York’s number one New Age public-relations consultant, scrawled around an invitation to the opening of a new store called The Crystals Cave …
… where our experts will unite you with the mystic gemstone that’s been waiting for YOU, and YOU ALONE, since the beginning of time.
Grayle crumpled it.
There were crystals on the bookshelves, a crystal on the TV, two crystals by the phone. Quartz and amethyst for opening the psychic centres. Tiger’s eye for confidence in health. Onyx for concentration.
There was the tree-of-life wallchart above the sofa, a poster of the Great Pyramid at sunset behind the TV. A small Buddha served as a doorstop. And under the window, a three-foot-tall plaster statue of the Egyptian dog-god Anubis wore a diamante poodle collar.
Hey, just because you believe in this stuff, Grayle would tell visitors, you don’t have to be too serious about it. The principle difference between Grayle and Ersula, five years and several epochs apart.
Tonight the crystals looked dull, there was a chip out of the Buddha she hadn’t noticed before. Also, Anubis looked so resentful in his poodle collar that she took it off.
Detective Olsen. Well screw him.
Grayle finished off half a bottle of Californian sparkling wine which had gone flat in the refrigerator, drinking it from the bottl
e, like beer. Figuring that, by now, the entire NYPD must have been officially notified that Holy Grayle Underhill was a doped-up neurotic who should be handled with iron tongs.
So the prime theory here, Ms Underhill, is that your sister’s been kidnapped. Do we have any kind of ransom communication? No?
OK, let’s consider the other option. Murder. Do we have a body? Let me, in the first instance, ease your mind on this score. I persuaded my lieutenant to allow me to call up three police forces around the area you say your sister was last seen. I faxed them all a description, plus the photograph you gave us, and none of them appears to have a Jane Doe bearing any physical resemblance whatsoever to this person.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a highly educated, independent and apparently headstrong twenty-five-year-old woman who, for reasons unknown, has failed to communicate with her family for a period of just over one month. Ms Underhill, do you have any idea how many women in this city have been on the missing persons register for over one year…?
What Grayle, in her desperation, had done next, had been to show Detective Olsen the letter. Even the final pages, which Lyndon had not seen.
Big mistake.
Let me get this right. What we are suggesting now is that your sister has succumbed to an insidious, mind-possessing force emanating from some Stone Age burial chamber. Do I have this right, Ms Underhill? Tell me, have you discussed this with a priest? Have you attempted to contact your sister telepathically? Or, maybe, enlist the assistance of some of the people you’re always writing about and like beam down into her next dream, tell her to come back home at once? Have you tried that, Ms Underhill?
In the refrigerator, Grayle found another bottle quarter full of stale sparkling wine and she drank that too.
On the old wine crate she used as a coffee table lay Ersula’s last letter, creased up and stained with doughnut jam from Guardi’s. Except for the last pages, which Lyndon hadn’t handled.… Grayle, do you have smells in dreams?Perhaps you do. Perhaps the olfactory element is commonplace in the dreams of others. I just know I do not recall ever being aware of a smell before. Certainly nothing so horribly powerful as this stench, this nauseous, all-pervading stench of corruption that made my insides contract until I was sure I was going to throw up. Can you throw up in dreams? Probably. I didn’t. I sure sweated, though…