by Phil Rickman
‘It’s not very deep, is it?’
‘Why should it be?’
‘I don’t know.’ He borrowed the pick, shifted another lump. ‘I don’t know anything about helicopters. Are they very heavy?’
The pick snagged. He pulled it. It ripped through fabric. He bent and pulled out what appeared to be a sleeve; it was nylon, quilted. It smelled bad.
‘Christ,’ Magda Ring said softly. ‘How did you know? How the fuck did you know?’
He bent and lifted out a weighty concrete cube. There was most of a nylon coat down there. When he pulled more of it away, a rich, putridly familiar stench started to pulse and wriggle out of the hole. The smell was a living thing.
As always, it was Islington, two heads fallen together on a sofa, flies and kiddy porn.
Maiden turned his face to the sky, swallowed a long breath, looked down.
What you could see of the body was partly liquefied. It lay in a soupy, brown sludge. Half the face was visible, features darkened, puffed, blistering.
Magda Ring cried out once, turned and stumbled away. Maiden gagged and bit hard on the sleeve of his jacket. When he found he was starting to shake, he, too, walked away.
From the edge of the wood, like some comical, gulping birdcall, came the sound of someone vomiting. Magda on her hands and knees among the autumn mulch: burnt sienna, yellow ochre and sour pink.
XL
He was hardly what you expected.
But come on, hen, what did you expect — black suit, slicked-back hair, white skin, Ronnie Kray rosebud lips?
Well, the black suit was right, very classy, but there wasn’t enough hair to slick back and the skin was closer to yellow. He wore thick glasses, had the manner of an old-fashioned accountant. Distant.
Distant you could understand, today. The black suit, too.
‘Sister Anderson?’ His hand felt like the inside of a banana skin. ‘You some variety of nun?’
Andy smiled. ‘Nursing sister.’
‘Oh. Right.’
He didn’t look too well. Signs of high blood pressure, could be liver trouble, too. He was older than she’d figured, seventy maybe. How could a guy this old still be doing what they said he was doing? Young men, she could just about get her head around it — the lure of easy money, plus the illusion that you were invincible. This guy was well beyond all that.
‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr Parker. Time like this.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Tony Parker motioned to a hard chair on Andy’s side of the desk. ‘You told them downstairs it was about my …’ An eye twitched, dragging down loose skin.
‘Daughter. Aye.’ Like, how else would she have got in to see him?
‘So, go on.’ He nodded at the two black phones on his desk. ‘I’ve told them to hold all calls. ‘Cept for the wife.’
‘If it rings, I’ll go out.’
‘No need. We ain’t that close any more. She lives down in Essex. Got her sister wiv her.’
His voice was dry, his London accent trimmed. He looked like a man who didn’t cry much but spent a lot of time thinking. In Andy’s experience, crying was simpler, and much more therapeutic.
‘I’m more sorry than I can say. I’d got to know her a little. Great girl.’
‘Yeah.’ He was slumped in a high-backed swivel chair. It was the only sign of luxury in the room. The desk was scuffed, old rather than antique. Looked like it had come out of one of the old Feeny Park solicitors’ offices. There were no pictures on the walls. This was really Emma’s old man?
This office was over Parker’s town-centre nightspot, the Biarritz. Who the hell had clubs called the Biarritz and the St Moritz any more?
Only fading guys like this, in towns like Elham.
It had gone quiet. Tony Parker gazed past her, out of the window at the beauteous Elham skyline, the old parish church, the new tech-college building. He looked like he was already forgetting she was here.
Of course, Riggs would know, by now, that she’d come. Whatever she said here would get back to him, every word of it, and quickly.
‘I also know Bobby Maiden,’ Andy said.
‘Really.’
‘When he had his accident, I was with the team that brought him round.’
Parker looked at her. ‘You’ll pardon me if I don’t recommend you for a medal.’
‘What I wanted to say was, he’s no the kind of guy would do this … thing.’
‘That’s it? You come here to say that?’
No, what she came to say was, If anything should happen to Bobby Maiden there’s me here, this big-mouthed Glaswegian harpy, who knows who it’s down to. And, by coming here, parking out front, also indirectly conveying this information to Mr Riggs.
‘You come here,’ Parker said, ‘to try and tell me that piece of fucking shit did not kill my daughter. Get out. Get the fuck out of my office, Sister Anderson.’
Andy didn’t move. ‘You’re makin’ a mistake, Tony.’ Could feel her accent thickening like phlegm in her throat. Somebody came on aggressive, it usually happened.
Tony Parker didn’t speak. Clearly couldn’t believe she hadn’t gone.
‘Your friend Mr Riggs was round just now. Figured I might know where Bobby was hidin’ out.’
‘And you didn’t, I expect.’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘You’re a stupid cow. How many times the police name the man they’re after? Not often, Sister, and if they fink it’s a copper they’ll sit on it till they can’t sit on it no more. Martin Riggs, however, he’s too straight for that.’
‘Jesus God.’
‘He knows one of his men’s guilty, he won’t cover it up. A good man, I’m telling you. Martin Riggs says the little shit did it, you can count on it. As indeed I am. ‘
‘Do me a favour, Tony, don’t patronize me. Riggs is as bent as bloody Quasimodo’s spine. He’s tryin’ tae stitch Bobby up. I know that, and if you don’t know it, you’re more fuckin’ decrepit than you look.’
Parker’s eye twitched again, which made him angry; he controlled it.
‘You know Jim Bateman, Sister?’
‘Of Bateman and Partners? Aye.’
‘You may be hearing from him.’
‘You mean …’ Andy almost laughed. ‘… you mean you didnae stay with your London lawyers? What a bloody loser you are, Tony. It’s all Jimmy Bateman can do tae conveyance a hoose. Present him wi’ a slander case tae prosecute, the guy’d go off sick for three months. Listen, I couldnae care less what you and Riggs are intae, I just don’t want anybody doin’ anything hasty in relation tae my friend Bobby Maiden, you got me?’
She watched Parker tighten. ‘Like who, Sister?’
A phone rang. Parker picked up the one next to it. ‘Yeah. Take her back. Say I’ll call her. Who? All right. Yeah.’ Hung up. Lifted his sick eyes to Andy. ‘Who might act hastily, Mrs Anderson?’
‘A few people might. Given the circumstances.’
Truth was, he didn’t look capable of haste. He looked like a man on whom age had crept up like a mugger. Turned round and thump. Never saw it till it happened. Wakes up with no hair and thick glasses and he has to cut down on his drinking and his late nights, and London doesn’t seem so homely, and Elham is a tacky wee retirement haven, in the care of kindly Superintendent Riggs. Sad, eh?
Parker said. ‘You’re from Glasgow, ain’tcher?’
‘Aye, but I was educated at Roedean, as you can tell.’
‘You people.’ Parker shook his head. ‘You’re all barbarians up there. Act hastily … Jesus wept.’ A digital timer on his desk bleeped twice and Parker took a gold-plated pillbox from his top pocket. ‘Save us all from television.’ He put a small white pill on his tongue and swallowed it.
‘You should take water with that,’ Andy said.
Parker looked politely contemptuous.
‘You need to look after yourself, Mr Parker.’
‘Why?’ He put away the pillbox. He didn’t look at all well. ‘That girl was the on
ly kid I had. I was gonna sell this lot, set her up nice. Whatever she wanted.’
‘I think she wanted you to slow down.’
‘Talked about me, did she?’
‘A wee bit.’
He stared at her. He’d probably aged a couple of years since she came in.
Andy stood up, moved round the desk. Parker watched her without much curiosity. She went behind him, placed both her hands on his forehead.
‘What’s this, Sister?’
‘Reiki. Japanese therapy thing.’ His skin felt like crepe paper.
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Cost me damn near two grand for the courses.’
Parker grunted. Talking his language.
‘Shut up. Close your eyes.’
She’d given him nearly ten minutes’ Reiki when the phone rang. ‘Unplug the fucker,’ Parker said.
Andy’s hands moved down his face. She didn’t think about High Knoll.
After a while, Tony Parker fell asleep. When he awoke, there were tears drying in the hollows of his cheeks. He was maybe too relaxed to notice.
After a minute or two, he said, ‘You want a job, Sister? Eight-fifty a week and a lump sum when I’m brown bread?’
He didn’t seem to know he was crying. It could be powerful, the Reiki, if the patient was willing to disconnect.
‘I’m no looking for a job,’ Andy said. ‘But you can do me one favour. Just tell me if you did anything hasty this morning.’
XLI
Following Magda Ring towards the mellow farmhouse home of the University of the Earth, Maiden felt a spasm in his chest.
A brief tightening sensation was all it was, and the other bloke would have ignored it. But the other bloke was only aware of surface things. And the other bloke died.
Magda almost fell at the door, shoving in a long key. As though she was desperate to put that fat slab of oak between her and the smell of corrupting flesh tainting the grounds of Cefn-y-bedd. He could understand that. But he also understood that the tightening of the chest was a response to a deep-down feeling that this house enclosed something darker and worse. And personal. As if he’d followed a preordained trail and the trail ended not at the grave in the concrete, but here, in this quiet old house.
He followed her into a big, square hall with a wide wooden staircase, several doors leading off, a deep window halfway up the stairs.
And, on the only blank wall, almost exclusively lit by this window, a picture. A picture which sent a weight slamming into his chest, like a wrecking ball fracturing some old factory wall.
Turner. He was transfixed. J. M. W. bloody Turner.
His heart seemed to crunch.
Adrian had steak, done rare. Grayle, compromising with a ploughman’s lunch with cheese, was surprised.
‘See, most of the New Age people I know are vegetarians.’
Adrian groaned. ‘Oh … really, Grayle! An interest in earth-consciousness doesn’t necessarily make one New Age. Those people are doing our subject so … much … damage. As the cave-paintings so amply demonstrate, Neolithic people were hardly veggies. They hunted. They hunted to live and they lived to hunt!’
Lecturing again. The didactic side of him taking over, changing him from schoolboy to schoolteacher. It was beginning to irritate her. Grayle shook her hair out of her eyes. And also …
… also, apart from placing his hand over hers on the gear shift that time, his interest in her as a woman seemed actually to be receding.
No problem. Sure, a good-looking guy, and she was unattached, but anything of a personal nature could only be a complication and right now she had enough of those. It was just that a little recognition, that’s all, of mutual attraction, generally made things easier.
Ho-hum. Too late now. They’d soon be among a whole bunch of people, celebrating, having a good time. The pub was just outside Stow-on-the-Wold, and less than a dozen miles from the Rollright Stones. It was old, like the Ram’s Head at St Mary’s, but it had polished panelling and brass lamps, and it was full, suggesting a wealthier, more populous area.
‘Well, all right.’ Adrian sawing up pink steak, real efficient. ‘A lot of the people on the courses are, naturally, New Agers, and it’s my job to keep them amused. But, really … I mean, some of them are such incredibly silly, shallow, inconsequential people that it’s a struggle sometimes to hide one’s contempt.’
Jesus, was this Ersula or was this Ersula? ‘What about Janny and Matthew? They’re kind of New Age, aren’t they?’
A shadow crossed his eyes. ‘They’re nice people. They’re friends.’
Something here she wasn’t getting. ‘How’d you get into this stuff, Adrian?’ Grayle abandoned onto a side plate the cob of squelchy, white bread that came with her lunch.
‘Didn’t get into it.’ He pushed a piece of meat into his mouth. ‘Got into me. You don’t want that bread?’
‘Sure, help yourself. It?’
‘The Earth. Always aware of Her, of course.’ He grabbed the bread, took a bite. ‘Grew up in Wiltshire. Father was an army officer. Stonehenge was always there. Better seen from a distance, rather lost its magic with all the main roads and tourists. And the army, all manoeuvres, no real … Anyway. At least Avebury’s surviving. Despite the undesirables it attracts. At Avebury, I had a sort of vision. A calling, I suppose.’
‘In a church-minister kind of way?’
‘In exactly that kind of way.’
‘To go out and spread the word about earth-mysteries?’
‘But that’s not enough, is it? Everybody’s just living on the Earth. We should live in Her and She in us. We should move with Her, breathe with Her.’
Sounded kind of sexual. ‘Where’d you get this, Adrian? Where’d it come from?’
‘From?’ He looked surprised. ‘From the Earth, of course.’
‘No, I mean, which books, in particular?’
‘Books?’ He was almost shouting. Strands of steak clung to his teeth. ‘I received it from the Earth, Grayle. I received it.’
‘Yeah, sure, but …’ Feeling herself going red. ‘I mean … how?’
He looked at her for a long time, the way a teacher looks at the dumbest kid in the class when the kid reveals, by some inane answer, that it hasn’t grasped what the lesson was even supposed to be about.
‘The dreaming,’ Adrian said.
‘I’m sorry … You get guidance from dreams. Of course.’
‘Guidance? Instructions! Look, you don’t seem to realize, the dreaming is the University of the Earth. You’re surrendering your consciousness to the oldest teacher of all. And when you’ve been doing it for so long, when you’ve shown you’re ready to serve Her, the Earth will tell you what She wants from you.’
Ersula had written, What you are dealing with here is the unconscious and that must be lift to find its own route to what you would probably call enlightenment.
‘Adrian, how long you been doing this?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Several years. Put it this way.’ Adrian began to mop up the remains of his gravy with the remains of Grayle’s cob of white bread. ‘So far, I’ve spent … hold on, tell you exactly … seven hundred and thirty-eight nights in ancient sites.’
‘What?’
‘It was why I just had to have this job. I can take groups of students all over the country to sleep at sacred sites. Go alone, first, of course, to test them out.’
She had a picture of him, some big boy scout with his knapsack, leading a crocodile of well-heeled innocents in anoraks.
‘The sites know me now. Most of the guardians know me. Of course, if a certain guardian has a particularly fearsome aspect, I won’t take students there.’ Adrian grinned. ‘Wouldn’t do to lose one of the poor punters through a heart attack or something.’
Grayle recalled Matthew Lyall talking of the grotesque hag-like guardians invading your dreams, barring the way. Also recalled what Cindy had said about the death of Mrs Willis at the Knoll. A stroke.
‘Can be
quite terrifying at first,’ Adrian said. ‘Mind you, it can also be a wonderfully healthy thing. Quite often, after a dreaming, you’ll notice that the subject’s health has improved.’
He looked past Grayle, at green hills through a window, his knife in one hand, the last of the bread in the other. ‘Funny thing. When I spend a night in an ordinary bed, I feel quite disoriented. Dislocated, you know?’
Dislocated? Jesus, was this any wonder after seven hundred and thirty-eight nights inside prehistoric ritual temples? According to Ersula, just a couple of experiences could blow your mind. Well, it was clear enough now: what this guy did, he OD’d … he OD’d on the dreaming. Turned himself into a dream-junkie.
‘But, Adrian, what happens when the dreaming experiment comes to an end? When all the stuff goes into the computers?’
Adrian threw down his knife. ‘It will never end. It’s already way beyond an experiment. Do you really think we can learn all the Earth has to teach us in a few years? In a lifetime, even?’
‘Let me get this right.’ Oh boy, just when you think all the world’s crazies are gathered in LA, with a small New York overspill … ‘You see the University of the Earth developing into some kind of channel … into like a universal planetary consciousness?’
‘Already is. And one day I’ll prove it. At present, She speaks to just a few of us, in our dreams. One day, quite soon, She’ll speak to everyone. You’ll hear Her. You’ll all hear Her.’
‘The EVP tapes? You think one day you’ll get to record the voice of …?’
‘Perhaps we already have. We just can’t understand it. Any more than we understand when She speaks to us in the wind, the sound of waves on the shore.’
‘Well,’ Grayle said. ‘I guess he even convinced Ersula.’
‘Who? Who convinced Ersula?’
‘Roger.’
‘Roger?’ Adrian pushed aside his plate. ‘What does Roger know?’ He stood up. ‘We’d better go. Do you need to use the loo or anything?’
* * *
Sky coming to the boil. Finger of lightning prodding languidly out of sweating clouds. Below, several sheep already struck down, a heavy tumble of bodies, milk-eyed heads flat to the plain.