Wicca

by James Follett

  `That I guessed,' said Vanessa coolly.

  `The plain truth is that the Country Brigade will refuse to enter into any agreement with Prescott. His kidnapping of 22 children was the last straw -- it's damaged his political standing in this community beyond repair. The Country Brigade are at this minute organizing an extra ordinary council meeting to be held in Government House at midnight. We want as many councillors there as possible, including Ellen Duncan. The motion will be for Prescott to resign and for a new acting chairman to be appointed.' It was the Big Lie: the only people the conspirators wanted in the courtroom-council chamber at midnight were Asquith Prescott and Adrian Roscoe.

  Vanessa arched her eyebrows. She did it well. `Really? And you think the vote will go your way?'

  `We've been busy lobbying the last 24 hours despite Prescott's feeble roadblocks,' growled Baldock. `That's not what I asked, Mr Baldock,' said Vanessa acidly, very much the chairman of the board now.

  Baldock contrived to look uncomfortable with Vanessa's searching eyes on him. `There's still a better-the-devil-we-know attitude to contend with. But if we get Roscoe's vote, it'll be in the bag and we'll have a new chairman by morning.'

  `And that will be you, Mr Baldock? As you're deputy chairman?'

  `Not fu-- bloody likely,' was Baldock's vehement response. `I never wanted to be deputy in the first place. And I certainly don't want to be chairman unless I could get away with doubling the transaction tax on beef and abolishing it on pork.'

  Vanessa permitted herself a faint smile. `You must have someone in mind.'

  `We have a caretaker chairman in mind,' said Baldock slowly. `You, Miss Grossman.'

  Malone watched Vanessa carefully but there was no reaction this time. He could guess why: this was her world. A world of poker-faced deals and counter-deals. A world of power-skirmishing where she was at her best in the driving seat.

  `Why me, Mr Baldock?'

  `You've never been involved in local politics. You're not aligned with any factions. You're a self-made businesswoman. New money. Prescott is old money. You understand the workings of Pentworth's government, and, as a wife and mother, we're unlikely to see from you the sort of Prescott decision-making that has caused so much anguish over the last 24 hours.'

  Vanessa's hard stare gave nothing away. `And you think that Adrian Roscoe will agree to being in the same room as Ellen Duncan, and voting the same way as her?'

  `He's on the phone,' said Malone. `If you did a bit of wheeling and dealing with him first in which you agree to handing over Ellen Duncan to him as soon as you're chairman -- he'd jump at the chance.'

  `I think I'm ahead of you,' said Vanessa calmly. `This is the big catch. As soon as I'm chairman, you want me to renegade on any deal with Roscoe and grant a free pardon for Ellen Duncan and the Taylor girl.'

  `As the new chairman, it would be a popular move,' Malone observed.

  Vanessa smiled icily. `Let's get a few things straight. Firstly, I haven't said I'd take on the job, and secondly, if it goes wrong I lose my present well-paid job. Thirdly, I don't take on any major responsibility with my hands tied by undertakings I may not be able, or wish, to fulfil. If you want me to do this, I'll do it my way. Those are my terms. You either accept them or we don't have a deal.'

  Malone had warned David and Baldock that this was likely to be Vanessa's reaction; they had decided in advance what they would do.

  Baldock rose and held out his hand. `We have a deal, Miss Grossman.'

  The others stood and shook hands with Vanessa in turn. She remarked that David didn't look too happy but Baldock intervened to say that she would have to persuade Prescott to attend because standing orders required that a councillor subjected to a censure motion should be present.'

  `I have already thought of that,' said Vanessa. `He'll be there.' Once her visitors had left Vanessa ordered her husband upstairs to see to the children. Her first call was to Roscoe. After apologising for disturbing at this late hour she brought all her considerable negotiating skills and charm into play to persuade the cult leader that he was on the brink of a new era that would usher in the formal recognition of the Bodian Brethren in which her first action as the new chairman would be the handing over of Ellen Duncan. She explained that she had persuaded the Country Brigade to bring the infernal fugitive witch to Government House. His vote was essential to help bring this state of affairs about. Even the witch's vote would have to be used, but that was a matter of expediency and surely he considered that the means justified the end?

  Roscoe promised to be at the meeting.

  Vanessa's next call was to Prescott. She told him that she had learned of a plot to overthrow him in which all the councillors opposing him would be meeting in Government House at midnight. Prescott was incensed, declaring that no vote could be taken without him being present.

  `I don't think they're interested in legal niceties,' said Vanessa. `But they can hardly refuse you your vote if you're present.'

  Prescott said that he would be there and offered to collect her.

  Vanessa looked at her watch when she ended the call. Just enough time to get ready. Her pulse was racing. Adrenalin surging through her. It had started out as yet another boring evening, and now she was at the centre of a takeover battle that would see her ambitions realized.

  Chapter 83.

  ON LEAVING VANESSA'S house, after the stable lads had left to meet up with Carl, Malone's first words to his colleagues were: `Much as I dislike cliches, the one about a hook, line and sinker seems appropriate.'

  `You think she bit?' David asked.

  Baldock snorted. `Bit? You could smell her craving for power. Like a sow in rut. Worse than my pigs except their stink is more honest.'

  `My God -- I never thought it would come to us resorting to this sort of thing,' said David bitterly. `A putsch.'

  Malone put his hand on David's shoulder. `I can understand how you feel. Most of us believe that we have decent, civilised standards, but we have to set them aside tonight. We arrest Prescott and Roscoe and we knockout the radio station with one blow. Okay -- let's talk cricket.'

  The three men made their way into the town, arguing about the relative merits of Pentworth's various cricket teams, and generally giving the impression of having had too much to drink. They kept this up until they reached the centre of Pentworth and then took Malone's back alley route to arrive at Bob Harding's workshop at 11:25pm.

  As expected, the scientist was tinkering in his workshop. He now had a much-improved working model of his submersible to play with, as Suzi would put it; to experiment with, as Harding would put it. He was surprised but not displeased to have visitors.

  `You have to get that spare broadcast band radio rigged,' said Malone. `Radio Pentworth goes off the air at midnight or just after. We need to jump in the moment it does with an announcement.'

  Harding stared at each man in turn by the light of his low-wattage bench lamp. `You'd better tell me what all this is about.'

  Baldock quickly outlined the bare plans for the night. The scientist paused as he was connecting a dummy load aerial to the transmitter. He looked at the three in astonishment. `Arrest them all! On what charges?'

  `With Adrian Roscoe, it'll be attempted homicide,' said Malone. `The same for Nelson Faraday if he shows up. If not, we pick him up later. Likewise with Vanessa Grossman -- conspiracy to abduct children. And there's a whole stack of charges against Prescott, including perverting the course of justice and conspiring to cause acts of criminal damage against churches and chapels. The evidence against him is solid -- from a reliable source.'

  `But he doesn't move anywhere without armed bodyguards. It'll be carnage.'

  `We have a diversion planned that will separate Prescott from his hoods,' said Baldock. `And we've enough men infiltrated into the town to secure Government House within seconds. Some are armed but we pray to God that the announcement from here will prevent bloodshed.'

  `It'll have to be a helluva diversion.'

>   `It will be.'

  Harding shook his head. `Well let's hope to God that it works.' He finished checking the transmitter. `Okay -- it's fine. My aerial's not so well-sited as the one on Government House, but I've put a ten watt linear amp in line. No one will notice any difference.' He switched on a portable radio. `And to take us up to the news at midnight,' said the Radio Pentworth presenter, `a vinyl recording of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.'

  `How very apt,' Malone observed.

  `So what's in the statement you're going to read out?' Harding inquired.

  `That you're going to read out, Bob,' said Baldock, handing Harding an envelope. `In the next few minutes ten men will be arriving here for your personal protection and that of your wife. We want you to take over as acting chairman.'

  Chapter 84.

  VIKKI WAS SURPRISED BUT not alarmed to see that her skin was the same colour as Dario's skin, her breasts much fuller than normal, her nipples dark and prominent. But what held her attention was IT... So dark and slender, vein-laced, rising up, forcing its way into the valley between her breasts with a bewildering, insistent strength. She instinctively knew what she had to do. She squeezed her breasts together against him and began moving them up and down, gently at first and then more quickly to keep pace with his breathing.

  She concentrated on lifting herself up and pushing down, using her whole body now, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and all the time revelling in the power she was exercising over this magnificent warrior as she rolled the oiled sleeve of skin back and forth. A glance showed that his eyes were still open, searching the long grass for shadows fleeing from the doomed village that his impi had raided, but his lips were parted in a silent grimace, his teeth clenched.

  It ended with a sudden warmth spreading across her breasts and between her thighs. She straightened and stepped back, smiling at the Zulu warrior while working the milky fluid into her skin to be sure of absorbing the strength he had given her.

  Vikki. Come to us.

  The sun went in and the blinding glare on the yellow bush and red soil was no more.

  Vikki...

  She woke with a start from her favourite dream. She hadn't meant to doze. She listened intently. Claire's and Ellen's regular breathing told her that they were asleep.

  Come to us, Vikki.

  `I'm coming!' her lips mimed in reply.

  The glow of the night lamp enabled Vikki to dress in jeans and a T-shirt, and push her feet in trainers without knocking anything over. Lacing the trainers could wait; the voice urging her to go to Pentworth Lake was an insistent clarion call of such intensity that she was sure her two companions would hear it.

  Ellen and Claire didn't stir as Vikki arranged her pillows so that it looked as though she were asleep under the sheet. She took Ellen's penlight torch and a bread knife, and ducked into the narrow passage that led to the blocked entrance. David Weir and Malone had sealed the cave's entrance so that it could be opened from inside in an emergency. Sometimes, when she had been feeling particularly miserable over the death of Sarah, or when her longing to be free became a torment, she would often come and sit close to the hurdle that retained the turf covering and listen to the sound of birdsong. Sometimes she had heard people passing by, talking. On one terrifying occasion she had sat in petrified silence as she listened to a group of voices discussing which farmhouse they would be raiding next in their search for the fugitives. They were so close that they must have been sitting on the grass outside the cave entrance.

  She listened carefully now in case lovers were nearby or a morris patrol enforcing the curfew for under 18-year-olds. A barn owl hooted mournfully but there were no other sounds so she carefully sprung inwards the hazel wands that held the hurdle in place. Using the bread knife to cut a hole through the turf large enough for her to wriggle through was easier than she expected. A breeze kept the smell of the gingko tree at bay so that the draughts of night air she breathed seemed to sting with their purity after two weeks shut up in the cave. The sweet air and the realization that she was now free for the first time since Nelson Faraday had arrested her in Ellen's shop was a heady brew, quickly displaced by the summonsing voice that told her that she wasn't free. Not yet.

  She reached through the opening to reposition the hurdle, clenching the penlight torch between her teeth. The turf had to be packed into place in exactly the right position. To be doubly sure that she left no traces she even brushed the grass upright around the cave entrance. A sudden movement out of the corner of her eye gave her a scare until she realized that it was a group of David's southdown sheep that had drifted from the main flock.

  Vikki. Come to us.

  `Yes,' she answered. `I'm coming.'

  She set off towards Pentworth Lake.

  Chapter 85.

  IT WAS FIFTEEN MINUTES to midnight and the PMR radio clipped to the rim of the microlight's cockpit had remained infuriatingly silent. Harvey Evans had been sitting at the tiny biplane's controls for ten minutes, praying that he would receive Malone's "operation aborted" signal, but the frequency had remained silent. Not so much as a burst of static to open the transceiver's squelch.

  A flash of an approaching torch. `Looks like this is it, Mr Evans.'

  `We'll give it another two minutes, Charlie. Just in case.'

  Charlie Crittenden grunted and moved away to talk to Gus. There was nothing to do but wait. The microlight was ready, its fuel tank full, the four maritime rockets were in their tubes mounted on the upper wing. Their firing lanyards terminating in a row of wooden toggles dangling above Harvey Evans' head. They were now painted white -- unlike the night of the rescue of Ellen and Vikki, there was no moon.

  Evans shone his torch on the detailed sketch of Government House's front elevation even though he had memorized every window. His target was Prescott's office on the top floor which would be empty. Any of its three main windows would do. The resulting fire would lead to the evacation of the radio station on the same floor. There was only one person -- the presenter --on duty at night. He had access to a fire escape. If possible Evan's would also take out the transmitter's aerial on the roof of Government House, but the real purpose of the attack was to create a diversion that would distract Prescott's bodyguards in the courtroom.

  With other diversions planned throughout the town to coincide with his attack, Malone had been confident that the putsch would succeed and, more importantly, succeed without bloodshed. Evans wished that he had Malone's confidence in his flying ability. It was going to be a difficult attack. He would have to come in low over the Crown, aiming the microlight at the target windows, fire the rockets, which would mean taking one hand off the controls during crucial moments, and follow through with a sharp right turn and climb at full power because there was no chance of him pulling up in time to clear Government House's steeply-pitched roof. The flares someone in Market Square was supposed to fire the moment they heard his approach ought to make things easier, but the whole operation had been planned in too much of a hurry; its success depended on the smooth dovetailing of too many events with precise timing.

  Something was certain to go wrong.

  Chapter 86.

  THE TWO BLACKSHIRTS GUARDING the entrance to Government House brought their staffs to attention when Prescott's Range Rover pulled up outside. Prescott was driving. He and Vanessa were the only occupants of the vehicle.

  Malone was peering through curtains of Father Kendrick's flat over the Catholic church hall on the opposite side of Market Square. `Well that's something,' he told the gathering behind him in the darkened room when he reported the arrival. `Prescott hasn't got his thugs in tow.'

  `Our first break,' David muttered thankfully.

  Adrian Roscoe appeared on foot with Nelson Faraday and two gowned sentinels. The cult leader's step was brisk, purposeful. Malone caught a glimpse of his elated expression as he turned to speak to Faraday before the party entered Government House.

  `There're all inside,' said Malone curtly, turni
ng away from the window. `We'd better get into position.'

  Father Kendrick held a candle lamp aloft and led the arresting party downstairs into the church hall. They gathered around the heavy oak door that opened onto the square. Malone knelt and peered through the letterbox. The view was restricted -- he could see no higher than the 2nd floor of Government House, but he could see the main entrance and the lights in the courtroom windows on the ground floor, which was all that mattered. Harvey Evans' rocket attack would be the signal for them to rush Government House.

  A final equipment check. Malone set the chamber of his .45 revolver to the first of his four remaining rounds. Dan Baldock checked his shotgun. Brilliant white light flared briefly in the hall as David made certain the halogen lantern was working. There were now two additional armed Country Brigade supporters in the party dressed as blackshirts. Their job was to bundle the two blackshirts at the entrance into the anti-room set aside for magistrates. David would use the lantern to temporarily blind the one at the lobby reception desk who would be overpowered and imprisoned. Once the lobby was secured, Malone, Baldock and David would burst into the courtroom to make the arrests and so bring a speedy and bloodless end to the tyranny that ruled Pentworth.

  That was the theory.

  Chapter 87.

  PRESCOTT WAS SURPRISED. `We're the first?' he queried of the blackshirt behind the reception desk.

  `Yes, sir. How many are you expecting?'

  `It's to be a full meeting of the council.'

  `There's still ten minutes to go,' Vanessa commented, looking at her watch, betraying nothing of her mounting excitement. Within twenty minutes at the outside, Prescott would be deposed and, with the backing of Adrian Roscoe and the blackshirts, she would be the undisputed ruler of Pentworth. There would be changes. Changes such as Baldock and his rabble never dreamed possible. No one got away with manipulating Vanessa Grossman. No one! That was a vow she had made years before when she had used her stockholding muscle to sack her useless older brothers from the board of the family business.