Ravyn frowned. “Borg?”
“Star Trek,” Stark said. “On the telly?”
“I’ve heard of it, but not seen any episodes,” Ravyn said. “I don’t own a television device.”
Stark suppressed his astonishment. He had never met anyone without at least one telly. Probably, Ravyn never streamed films or broadcasts on his tablet either, but he knew better than to ask.
“Both Miss Wallace and Mrs Banberry spoke of the Warlock,” Ravyn said, eager to turn from his social oddities.
“You can’t possibly think Old Hezekiah Boil is reaching out from his grave.” Stark paused. “He has a grave, doesn’t he?”
“In legend, a cursed, barren patch in the woods, more a rumour than a place.” Ravyn shook his head. “It’s not about ghosts.”
“Someone might want us to believe it is.”
“A distracting manoeuvre? It could be more personal.”
“Personal?”
“An expression of an inner nature”
“Someone would notice a heart-eating nutter, sir.”
“A carefully hidden nature, Stark, one concealed behind a mask of utter normalcy,” Ravyn explained.
“He would be wound up all the time,” Stark said. “One slip, everyone would know.”
“Rigidly maintained,” Ravyn agreed. “Most successful serial killers have done so, but it cannot be maintained indefinitely.”
Stark nodded. Working in London’s East End before being sent to Coventry, he saw violence daily, often committed by people whose brutality had etched every crease in their faces. But from time to time, he had handled cases where the killer, when run to ground, was fair and mild, the gentlest of people—the dumpling-faced clerk who bit out throats, the banker who killed because of his horoscope, and the angelic child who slaughtered her family when her mobile was taken away.
“We are miles from any such conjecture,” Ravyn continued. “What’s interesting is that until about forty years ago there lived in Little Wyvern a family named Boil.”
“Descendents of Hezekiah?” Stark asked.
Ravyn nodded. “And shunned because of it.”
“I’d move house too,” Stark said. “Another village, but more likely clear out of Hammershire altogether.”
“That’s because your heart isn’t in Hammershire, Stark.”
“My heart is in my chest, and I’d like to keep it there.”
“Most people live and die in the village in which they were born, generation upon generation,” Ravyn said. “That’s why people without deep roots are seen as newcomers.”
Stark nodded. He was always an outsider, but some reactions were rabidly xenophobic, a dark strain running deeper than the roots of the oldest trees. Even in a city like Stafford, change came slowly, but in a place like Little Wyvern, the past intruded upon the present and old beliefs often refused to die.
“Besides, they didn’t move house,” Ravyn said. “Their cottage burned to the ground. Victor Boil, age eight, escaped, but his parents did not. Some say screams are heard at the fire’s anniversary.”
Stark refused to rise to the bait. “What about the lad?”
“I wasn’t involved with the case,” Ravyn snapped. “How old do you think I am?”
Stark refused that bait as well. “I’ll check him out, sir.”
“And remember, we’re looking for a human killer, not a killer ghost.” His computer beeped. “Ah, an e-mail from Dr Penworthy.”
* * *
A human killer, not a killer ghost, Lena Penworthy thought. She had meant to discuss the rushed report, but Ravyn’s words halted her.
“I know that, sir,” Stark responded. “No such thing as ghosts.”
“Not in this case, Stark.”
She walked to the car park, then drove to Yewswand, five miles outside Stafford. At Hemlock Cottage, she let herself in.
She glanced over a sea of antiques to shelves of medical books, then to her collection of penny dreadfuls and opera programs. Some she had brought with her, but many more had flowed into her life in the past six years. Clattering sounds from above interrupted her.
Sighing, she went to the kitchen, put the kettle on, and started fixing dinner. The clattering increased. No lightning tonight, but Heather was agitated. Probably my own fault, she thought, letting myself get swept up in the events at Little Wyvern.
As soon as she set the table for two, the clattering faded to silence. Heather Goodestep never made an appearance, but she did respond to thoughtfulness. Kindness was a quality as rare now as it had been during the reign of Charles I.
Penworthy poured out for one.
Chapter 7
Sign of the Warlock
A single lamp shone behind the bar at the Blithe Spirit. Its light pushed back the darkness from only the first few tables. Behind that dim radiance shadows seemed to congeal and darken. Two figures sat close to each other at a table nearest the light.
“I don’t like it, Aggie,” Alfred Pettibone said. “Not at all.”
“Scared?”
“Aren’t you?”
Agnes Swanner took a large puff of her cigar, leaned her head back slightly, and let the smoke drift lazily toward the black-stained beams of the ceiling. Watching her, Pettibone wished he could be as calm as Agnes. He was afraid of the darkness and shadows gathered around them, of the single light being suddenly extinguished, of the faint sounds that came to him and the sounds too faint to hear, yet which he knew were there all the same.
“Why should I be?” she finally asked.
Pettibone’s eyes rounded in surprise. “Because we’ve aroused the ire of some murderous spirit. First, poor Simon; now, it’s killed Mr Gaites, and in the same way—ripped out his heart. We’ve stirred up an ancient evil, Aggie. Who knows who’s next?”
“Ballocks!” She puffed on her cigar, then took it from her mouth and pointed at Pettibone. “Don’t quail on me now, Freddie. Neither Jones nor Gaites was killed by any ghost.”
“But you said…”
“That was for that ponce of a policeman, him and his sergeant.” Her eyes narrowed as she recalled the way they had treated her. “You and I both know ghosts aren’t like that.”
“What about the Warlock?” Pettibone asked. “Before she went back to London, that Madeline creature said she saw Hezekiah Boil manifest himself at Hopkins Oak and in the graveyard.”
“Hysterical female,” Agnes said. “A stupid cow at that, letting herself get besotted over a worthless wanker like Jones.”
“What about Margaret Banberry?”
“What about her?”
“She’s now going around the village telling people how she saw the Warlock go into Pooks Wood with another ghost at the full of the moon,” Pettibone said. “That could only be Jameson Gaites. That was why he didn’t make his meeting with us. I know you said ghosts don’t kill, but Hezekiah Boil was an evil man, and the evil that men do oft lives on while…”
“Can it, Freddie!”
The harshness of her tone stung him.
“Listen, Freddie,” she said, mellowing a bit after seeing the hurt look in his eyes. “I know what’s being said about the Warlock, but that’s a good thing.”
“What?”
“Publicity, Freddie,” she explained. “It’s the kind of publicity money can’t buy.”
“Well, that part is good, I suppose,” he said. “Especially since we don’t have any money. But, even so, Aggie, if the Warlock has returned to punish us for…”
“Freddie, just think.” Then she added: “For once in your life. A ghost wouldn’t cut open a chest to get at a heart, would he?”
“He might…”
“No, he would rip open the chest.”
Pettibone shuddered.
“Or, more likely, he would reach inside and draw it out,” Agnes continued. “What material object can stop ectoplasm from entering? Cutting is done with a knife. If a ghost were prone to violence, as the Warlock might be, it would not use anything as mund
ane as a knife, would it? A knife is a human weapon, not a ghost’s.”
Pettibone frowned as he considered Agnes’ logic. It made sense, of a sort, and he did not like the thought of any ghost going around killing people, not even the Warlock.
“Besides, Jones and Gaites weren’t killed when their hearts were cut out,” she said. “That was done after they was dead. That’s what the police’s woman doctor was heard to say. Broken necks, it was, Freddie—broken necks.”
Pettibone gulped. Suddenly his collar seemed much too tight. It was not as bad as having a heart ripped out—cut out, he reminded himself—but it was bad enough. He had seen it done on the telly and even more times at the cinema: grab the head, give it a quick twist, and Bob’s your uncle.
“Freddie, focus!” Agnes snapped.
Pettibone shook his head, blinked and looked at Agnes. “Sorry, Aggie, but…” He tried to rid images from his mind. “If someone did use a knife to cut their hearts out, that doesn’t mean a ghost didn’t grab their heads, give a quick twist and…”
Agnes slapped him. Hard.
He rubbed his stinging flesh. He tried to pick up his train of thought, to finish what he had started to say, but found he could do neither. Her action had stunned him like no other thing she had ever done, but he no longer felt consumed by a rising tide of panic. The pain had brought him back.
“Better, Freddie?” She patted his arm gently.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Sorry I had to do that, but you were becoming hysterical.”
Reluctantly, Pettibone nodded. “This is scary stuff, Aggie.”
“What it is, is no time to lose your head.”
Pettibone forced a weak smile. “Or heart.”
“That’s the spirit, Freddie.” She smiled and playfully punched his arm, nearly upsetting him. “You still with me then?”
“You know I am, Aggie,” he assured her. “Aren’t I always?”
“Sure, just like it’s always been, Freddie—me and you against the world,” she said. “Nothing is going to stop us from making a go at this, not now that we’re so close.”
“Money,” Pettibone said.
Agnes growled in disgust and frowned. It was just like him to throw a spanner into the works when things were starting to turn their way again.
“Money,” he repeated. “The events tomorrow will bring in a few pounds, but nothing like what we need to make final payments to the vendors providing for the Gala.”
“We’ll just tell them they’ll have to wait till after the Gala,” she said. “What with all the publicity, we’ll have so many people wanting to invest, we’ll have to turn them away. After the Gala, we’ll have more than enough money to do anything we want.”
“They won’t wait,” Pettibone said. “After we got back from Stafford, I spent all day calling them. If we don’t give them what we owe, they won’t come through—staffing, food, music, nothing.”
“You’re such a pushover, Freddie,” she said. “In the morning I will give them all a bell and…”
“It won’t do any good, Aggie,” Pettibone protested. “I already threatened them with you but…well, no go.”
She did not quite like the way he put it, but she had to admit that her persistence was well known in these parts. Likely, he really had done his best, but he could not help being who and what he was. In the morning, she might still try her luck with the vendors.
“What about our deposits?” she asked.
“Gone,” he replied. “It was in the contracts we signed. If we do not come through with the balance twenty-four hours before the Gala, our deposits are forfeit.”
Her scowl deepened and she puffed furiously on her cigar. She reminded him of an old train sitting in a terminus, fires burning out of control in its iron belly, steam hissing from every joint, and no one around to release a safety valve.
“However,” he added, “I did get them to make a concession.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“They will waive the twenty-four-hour clause, if we pay them on the day of the Gala,” he said. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
“It’s something,” she admitted. “But not anything if we can’t pay them. Do we have anything at all? Can we maybe put them off a bit with a token payment to each?”
He shook his head. “We have so little left, any token payment would be almost like no payment at all.”
She stamped out her cigar and buried her face in her hands.
“I should have tried harder to keep Mr Gaites’ funds in reserve, but…” He sighed. “Well, it was too easy to spend.”
“And everything was more expensive than we thought it would be,” she said. “No one wanted to help us, but they all had their palms up, didn’t they? Greedy sods.”
“We could go to Sir Phineas and…”
“And what?” Agnes demanded. “Tell him we’ve managed to make a dog’s dinner out of yet another project?”
“He’s been a good friend to us over the years,” Pettibone said.
“It won’t work, Freddie,” Agnes said. “As the saying goes, that was then, this is now. Sir Phineas doesn’t have much beyond Spectre’s Haven and the land it sits on.”
“If we go to him, explain the situation, I know he would help us in some way,” Pettibone said. “He wants us to succeed.”
“Do you really think Prudie would let him?”
“He’s known us a long time,” he said. “Longer than her.”
“Yes, and she leads him around by the you-know-what,” Agnes said, her words laced with disgust. “Don’t look so shocked, Freddie. Why else would he bother with a brainless woman like that?”
Reluctantly, Pettibone agreed. “Perhaps we could ask him to talk to the vendors on our behalf. They might listen to him, make concessions for him they wouldn’t for us. He is very respected.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Absolutely not,” Agnes said. “Sir Phineas is our friend. I will not ask him to go begging to these vultures.”
“Then, what are we going to do, Aggie?”
“We have to think ourselves out of this mess.”
“But how?”
“There has to be some way to…” She stopped abruptly, cocked her head and listened intently.
“What is…”
“Shhh.”
Pettibone listened to the silence of the closed pub. At first he heard nothing, then a faint sound came out of the darkness. He shuddered. The blood drained from his face.
“Perhaps the Warlock is…”
“Quiet,” she whispered.
Small furtive sounds came from behind them, as of claws upon the wood floor. They peered into the rear of the pub, the blackness unrelieved by the single feeble light above the bar. Unconsciously, they drew closer to each other.
“Could it be Michael?” Pettibone whispered.
“He knows we’re having a meeting,” Agnes replied, keeping her voice no louder than a breath. “He likes the trade he gets from the punters too much to queer our deal. Besides, he knows what I can do to him. How long was his arm in that cast after he tried to throw you one night?”
Pettibone smiled. He wanted to chuckle at the memory of him and Agnes with too much to drink, but he was too frightened.
“Maybe he just came back to…” He stopped, listening to the faint click of a door closing.
“Ghosts don’t use doors,” Agnes snapped, raising her voice a little, but not too much. “Come on, Freddie!”
He started to protest, but she surged out of her chair and headed toward the rear exit. The next thing he knew, his arm was in her iron vise grip. He was pulled from his chair and the chair clattered noisily across the floor. He was not a praying man, never had been, but he uttered a small one at that moment, praying that the ghost, or whatever it was, was well and truly gone.
At the rear, after banging into several tables and upsetting more chairs, Agnes reached inside the service passage and flipped on the light.
The bulb was small, naked and flyspecked. It barely lighted the exit door, the doors to the necessaries and the tables nearest the narrow corridor.
A few crates in the passage afforded no hiding place. They took a look in the gents and ladies, Agnes first with Pettibone peeping around, but the conveniences were untenanted. The exit itself was locked. Neither wanted to check the area behind the pub.
“Well, if someone was there, he’s gone now,” Agnes said.
Pettibone felt a measure of relief, but not as much as he felt he should. There still lurked in his mind the fear that the Warlock was nearby. At any moment, a spectral arm might reach out of the shadows and give his head a vicious and lethal twist. Or maybe take his heart, he thought with a shudder, maybe with a unearthly knife or just reach inside his chest, grab the still-beating heart and…
“What’s this?” Agnes exclaimed.
Pettibone fled his self-induced terror and turned toward Agnes. She stood by a table barely within the sphere of light produced by the bulb in the service passage. On the table was the white rectangle of an envelope.
“What is it, Aggie?” he asked, joining her.
She hesitated, then picked it up. He looked over her arm. On the front, a ragged hand had printed in pencil F.O.G. When she turned the thick envelope over she nearly dropped it. They both gasped, for on the reverse was a symbol they both knew well from their researches into the occult—the mark of the Horned God.
“The sign of the Warlock,” Pettibone breathed.
“Don’t be stupid, Freddie.”
“But the symbol!”
“It’s just someone playing silly buggers.”
“Open it,” he urged.
She inserted her thumbnail under the flap, started to slit it open, then hesitated. It was not a message from the Warlock or any ghost, of that much she was certain, but she was gripped by a sudden sense of dread, as if it might contain a harbinger of doom.
“Go on,” Pettibone said, excitement replacing fear. “What are you waiting for?”
Agnes slit the paper with her talon-like nail.
“Oh my God,” Pettibone whispered.
“Cor!”
Village of Ghosts Page 14