by Nick Brown
“So, we’ve got a pissed off team, a warped practical joker, a hostile landowner and a site that was meant never to be found.”
He broke off to pour the wine and mop the sauce up off his plate with some bread, leaving Jim to reflect that according to his reckoning all the recent difficulties on site had occurred since the first investigation of the mound. Before he was able to articulate this Giles slurred,
“I’ve just time for an espresso and grappa before going back to the Unit. I may as well; I’ve nowhere else to go and won’t see anyone till after the weekend. I don’t suppose you’ll go back to work; your weekend starts here right?
Jim admitted it would and they talked of his weekend plans. Later, paying the bill after hesitating over whether to leave a tip, he noticed that the clock had restarted and was showing the correct time and that the family party had left, as had Carver and Richardson.
They agreed that Jim and Lisa would be at the site on Tuesday morning to cover the opening of the Neolithic tomb and then parted. Jim felt that, in an imperceptible way, something had gone wrong with the day and he felt a sense of anxiety not lessened by the fact that as he walked through the thickening fog he felt he caught a glimpse at the periphery of vision of the surly waiter behind him.
The walk to the car didn’t lift his mood as the fog steadily thickened. It being Friday afternoon the offices in the city rapidly emptied, disgorging thousands of people onto the streets with a common purpose: to get home early for the weekend avoiding the rush hour traffic. The pavements were clogged and in the smeary half light it looked like a dystopian vision of mass evacuation. The Christmas lights strung across the streets and from lamp posts flickered in and out of vision through the fog. Across the square there was the clatter and shouting from the European market. He jumped with shock at the sound of a klaxon as a tram emerged from the fog to his left, passed him at speed before disappearing into the murk again.
After experiencing the usual delays in queuing to get out at the barrier of the Journal’s car park, he joined the barely moving queue of traffic heading for the main road south out of the city. Crawling through junctions and the virtually permanent road works, where no work ever seemed to take place and hundreds of forlorn cones narrowed the road, he passed the university’s sprawling campus and eventually came to a dead halt at the junction with Plymouth Grove. The traffic always slowed to a crawl here and now it just stopped. Despite the fact that it was barely three thirty the combination of gloom and fog made it seem like the dead of night. The poor visibility didn’t enhance the surroundings. To the left of the road stood the remains of a graveyard belonging to a church long since demolished after having been bombed in the war. This derelict open ground, enclosed by the remnants of decaying Victorian terraces and new university concrete, seemed lost and out of place.
The traffic refused to move and Jim wiped at the condensation forming on the inside of the car windows in an attempt to improve visibility. Presented with a choice of staring at damp, mildewed brickwork and stained concrete to the right or to the graveyard to the left he opted for the latter. What he could see of it through the fog was overgrown and decaying, the headstones blackened by soot deposited during the city’s industrial heyday. It was the sort of place, he reflected, that you drove past without looking at but never failed to be aware of, even though the vision was marginal. Tonight his vision wasn't marginal although after a moment he wished it were. It was not so much the bleak vista of dark, unkempt headstones reminding him of Scrooge’s grave in A Christmas Carol. Nor was it the air of neglect, decay and loss. It was that he thought he caught a fleeting glance through the swirling fog of a figure. It seemed as though a loosely articulated puppet was being jerked from one position behind a tombstone to another, the rapid awkward movement and poor visibility making it impossible to get a clear view. Indistinct or not, there was something peculiar about it as if it was trying to attract his attention. Jim was wondering if it was some trick being played by local kids when the traffic started to move. He accelerated slowly and looked back over his shoulder for a last glance but the figure was gone leaving only the fog and tombstones.
The thirteen miles home took the best part of an hour as the traffic snake crawled through the smeary grey and orange light. It was therefore with relief that he turned off the main road and followed the more sedate tree lined avenues that led to his home. The sense of satisfaction that normally enveloped him on arriving home on a Friday was tonight lacking. Even the light and noise that he encountered entering the house did little to lift him. His younger two sons and daughter were settled with their Friday treat, sweets, in front of the television, whilst sounds of a loud bass from upstairs informed him that their elder brother was expanding his already massive collection of bewildering music.
Walking through the book lined drawing room to the kitchen he found his wife listening to the Radio Four news and preparing the night’s dinner. The Friday night dinner was the traditional rite of passage between the working week and the weekend. A leisurely affair with a couple of well selected wines after the younger boys had settled for the night, their daughter on Facebook and their elder brother ‘hanging out’. But even the cheery greeting he received failed to rouse him and it was only a couple of hours later, sitting with an aperitif after a long soak in the bath, that his mood finally lifted.
Later that night unable to sleep, he sat in an armchair with a small whisky. The strategy worked and he began to drift into a dream ridden sleep in which something was looking for him in the fog. He was woken by the ringing of the phone and groped on the table for it assuming that there’d been some major event that his news editor wanted to clear with him. But it wasn’t, at first it wasn’t anyone: just silence and static. Then a voice.
“Jim Gibson.”
“Who’s there…Lisa, is that you?”
There was a strange laugh and then
“Guess what I’ve been doing…I’ve been looking through the footage we took at the sacrifice shrine. And we must have a problem with the camera, Jim, because it looks like they’ve already got out.”
“What do you mean, sacrifice shrine?”
There was no answer just a brittle laugh, then a click, and the line went dead.
CHAPTER 6
‘THICK EYED MUSING AND CURST MELANCHOLY’
Leaving the restaurant Giles moved through crowded foggy streets loud with the cheerful shouts of stallholders and office workers as he walked to the Unit’s offices in the basement of the University. He needed the walk in the cold to clear his head and reckoned that it would be quicker than waiting for a bus. Like all weekends he felt down and lonely so hoped that someone would still be at work to raise his sombre mood and maybe make him a coffee. The grappa had been a mistake, he’d drunk too much and it would screw up his evening. The Unit was empty, his staff having left early. He walked down the stone steps and through the long main room to his small office, turning on the fluorescent lighting that flicked then came on with a blink and a humming sound which seemed much louder when the space was deserted.
On his desk he’d been left a note that read ‘Claire rang, she’s the woman who talked to you at the site on Tuesday; can you ring her?’
It was followed by a local number. Not the type of conversation he wanted right now but he put the note in his pocket. However, the memory of her took his mind back to the site: it was on good, well drained land in a rich agricultural belt yet since the village was abandoned about 300 BC no one had resettled it. Why? The surrounding fields were scattered with Roman, early and late medieval pottery but around the dig there was nothing. It was like some mega catastrophe had hit it: a type of metaphysical anthrax contamination that no one through the ages would talk about.
The only later evidence was the macabre record of a suicide in a thirteenth century document. He decided he’d get Tim Thompson to hurry up with his summary of the evidence. Then not wishing to dwell on it he decided to finish for the day as the emptiness of the
sepulchral university basement was beginning to get to him.
Emerging into the deserted quad he saw the fog had thickened; the cold was intense. He thought he could hear ravens or crows calling to each other across the Neo-Gothic rooftops. They reminded him of the putrescent liquefaction of the dead crow in the desk. Shivering he crammed his hands into his jacket pockets and set off home. It wasn’t a comfortable walk. Sounds were muffled by the fog and buildings and people assumed strange shapes looming suddenly in and out of vision. Just before he turned towards where he guessed the entrance of his road lay hidden in the fog he barged into someone.
“Hey pal, you can’t walk through here; it’s a crime scene, you’ll have to cross back there.”
His eyes focussed on a policeman with behind him others, partly visible, erecting a barrier round a patch of pavement; a crime scene and recent. He mumbled an apology and turned to retrace his steps but as they drifted quickly beyond sight he heard the snatch of a sentence through the cold dense air.
“Yeah, but not something like this, I’m fuckin’ glad my kids are safe indoors.”
His crumbling terrace house was in an area which had been a desirable inner suburb a hundred years ago. Now it was a no man’s land inhabited by the poor and dislocated, intermingled with student housing, derelict wasteland and large dilapidated buildings some of which were boarded up but periodically reopened as squats and crack houses. All the families who could had moved out. But property was cheap here and this and the proximity to the university, attracted Giles and his wife to the decrepit house when they were post grads. Now Giles lived there alone and its disadvantages were more apparent.
Opening the door he felt the familiar stale rush of loneliness as the atmosphere of neglect and emptiness hit him. Since Sal moved out he’d let the place go to pieces and the house retained no trace of ever having been a home. He turned on the table lights in the large living room and flopped into one of the greasy brown corduroy sofas arranged around the walls. The room was littered with papers, books, CDs, vinyl and the remains of last night’s TV dinner. The wall by the large sash window was dominated by two huge speakers, old fashioned and inelegant. In fact these had provoked the last in an increasingly bitter series of rows with Sal, which precipitated her departure. Needing some noise to dispel the claustrophobic stillness he picked up a compact disc called ‘Band’ and put it in the machine.
It contained the numbers he had to learn for the blues band he played in with old university friends. This band was another reason for the breakup of his marriage. He had, as Sal several times pointed out, failed to grow up. The disc contained two songs by a sixties blues group now featuring on adverts and suitable for his band to play in pubs when they managed to get the occasional infrequent gig. However, as soon as the first bars started to play he realised it just made him feel worse. He turned it off. The house was empty and desolate; the silence felt palpable. He needed someone to talk to. On the table he noticed the contents of the jacket pocket he’d emptied when he came in with the telephone message on top: he decided to give it a try. The number rang five times and then an answering machine clicked into life.
‘The Vanarvi Astral Healing Centre is now closed but if you leave a number we will call you back.’
The voice was a woman’s and, if it was the woman from Thursday, it now sounded a lot more appealing; husky in a sexy way. After a moment’s hesitation he gave his name and number. In the kitchen he opened a bottle of red wine, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of the cupboard. His sad eyes looked back at him confirming what a mess he’d become. He took the wine back into the living room, turned on the TV and settled back into the sofa. After three glasses any interest he possessed had evaporated and he drifted fitfully into a troubled sleep.
***
Tendrils of fog crept through the sash windows and began to pile up against the ceiling as he watched, unable to move. The fog began to slowly sink towards him. He could hear Sal washing up in the kitchen and although he shouted she didn’t seem to hear him. He tried to tell her that the dark haired woman in the corner of the room shouldn’t be there but wouldn’t leave. The woman was sitting on the floor trying to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. He thought he heard Sal say,
“She’s the one you let out; she’s going to bleed you.”
Then the room got a lot smaller, in fact it was no longer a room and when he tried to stretch out his arms his hands immediately came into contact with cold damp stone. He was lying on his back on ice hard ground, frozen to it. He couldn’t move and a crushing weight of stone was cracking his rib cage. He stared into the fog in panic, he could still see the woman’s face drifting in and out of focus; she was both near and far away. Her features were indistinct; he saw only the shape of the long hair, glint of eyes and an impression of long sharp teeth.
Then something agonisingly sharp began to cut into his leg. The woman was holding a bloody flint knife. He started to scream but as he opened his mouth the fog poured into it wrapping itself round his tongue and slithering down his throat. He was making a desperate moaning sound but with no volume and with every moan breathing became more difficult as the fog slowly choked his lungs and his ribs broke. The agony of the cutting at his leg increased as the woman’s face, laughing now, receded rapidly and disappeared. Now that the fog filled his mouth, throat and lungs it began to solidify. Breathing was no longer possible yet he still heard himself whimpering with pain and terror as he lost all control to panic and darkness.
Then, through the darkness, far distant, a ringing sound. It came nearer, grew louder until he jerked upright with a shock taking what seemed an age to recognise his surroundings and even longer to realise that he was staring at a newscaster’s face on the TV screen. He’d spilt a glass of wine over himself and felt cold and sticky. There was still the ringing demanding to be heard and he finally recognised it as the phone. Groping round he located the handset and clasped it to his ear. His gasp of hello came out as a strangled yelp obviously confusing his interlocutor. He heard a woman’s voice saying,
“Dr Glover, Dr Glover are you all right? This is Claire Vanarvi. You rang while I was out.”
Giles had never been so relieved to hear a woman’s voice before in his life.
“Sorry, I’d gone to get the week’s shopping from Waitrose; I hope it’s not a bad time to call.”
As Giles began to recover his senses he found himself thinking that this was one of the nicest telephone voices he’d ever heard. Why had he described her to Jim as ‘mad as a badger’? The voice, which he had subconsciously categorised as husky said in a slightly louder tone,
“Dr Glover, are you still there?”
Giles mumbled a response and the woman, whom he now thought of as Claire, continued.
“Thanks for calling me back. I realise I handled things badly the other day and must have come across as mad, but I do need to talk to you.”
“No it’s fine, thanks for getting back to me so soon.”
Giles was by no means disinclined to talk. He was disorientated and needed female company so replied,
“Look, we could talk about it now if you like.”
“No, I’d rather not if you don’t mind, it’s too complicated and not something we can do over the phone.”
“Well, now would be good for me, I’ve got plenty of time.”
“No, I’d rather not if you don’t mind.”
He replied drunk and peevish, without thinking,
“Well, you’re the one who thinks it’s important so why not?”
“Listen Dr Glover, I can’t do it over the phone and I can’t meet you tonight but we could meet over the weekend.”
The mixture of frustration and booze brought out the spoilt child in Giles and he snapped back petulantly,
“Well I’m busy all weekend, this is the only time I can offer you.”
“OK, I could meet you at the site on Monday.”
“Can’t do that either.”
&
nbsp; He could sense the exasperation on the other end of the line and knew he was being stupid and cutting off his nose to spite his face so offered Tuesday afternoon on site. He still sensed her frustration as she agreed but not before giving him her address in case he changed his mind about the weekend. The address was in Lindow, which gave him a brief flutter of unease making it too late to respond in a friendlier manner before she abruptly rung off.
He had good reason to remember Lindow: a celebrated archaeological find from the same Iron Age time period as his own site, but far more dramatic. He’d been a schoolboy volunteer with the team that unearthed a ritual killing preserved in the peat diggings of Lindow Moss. Known with characteristic gallows humour as Pete Marsh it was a particularly grisly find from an age when sacrificial murder had been carried out in an attempt to placate frightening and hostile gods.
He turned off the TV; silence reclaimed the room. The fog outside thickened as the events of the day hovered over him like a pall. His head was beginning to ache and the memories of the Lindow dig flickered, probing the edges of his consciousness. After half an hour of depressed torpor he decided to take a handful of pills and go to bed, but not before checking that the doors were locked and looking into every room in the house and under the bed.
For a time he lay awake listening to street noise and the old house settling itself for the night. He thought about how lonely he was and how he’d screwed up his life and those of everyone close to him even though they seemed to have moved on and started again. Eventually he dropped into an uneasy sleep with dreams populated by strange women, enclosed spaces and somewhere just out of sight the strangely grinning cadaver of Pete Marsh.
Having festered all day in bed on Saturday eating takeaways, and slept better that night, he awoke on Sunday, if not refreshed then at least able to function. The sky was deep blue and there was light frost on the roads and the few patches of grass in the square outside the house. So, after drinking a pot of strong coffee and smoking three cigarettes and a spliff for breakfast he started to rack his brain as to what to do with the remnant of the weekend. The problem was that his social life was blighted, he had no real friends so unless he made a special effort to organise something, or the band was playing, he tended to squander his weekends in solitude moping round the flat, watching TV, drinking and smoking.