Dark Coven

by Nick Brown

  “This is the Rev Joyce: he likes to be called Ed.”

  Ed recognised the mockery in her voice and saw Ruth and Ailsa dutifully smile while Leonie just looked away as if he wasn’t there. He wished he wasn’t too, but sensed that there was something wrong here, quite apart from the reaction to the murder of Kelly. He began to make his sympathy pitch but a door opened and two women walked in. He watched as the eyes of the women on the sofas locked onto them, with what looked to him like expectation. Except for Rose, her expression was harder to read. She introduced him to Olga and Jenna.

  “I was explaining to your friends that I’m here to express sympathy, and to offer any support I can in these most difficult times.”

  It was Olga who answered. Ed found her strangely attractive: she was strong built with long flaxen hair worn in heavy plaits. She reminded him of a Valkyrie from the Ring cycle.

  “Thank you, that is kind, but we have our own spiritual support network here, something more sustaining than your dead man nailed to a tree.”

  Ed was used to his faith being ridiculed; even so, this seemed a particularly abrupt, not to say archaic, response; more a declaration of hostility than a refusal. Also, it was unexpected: there was a lot of alternative religion round here on the fringe of the Pennines, always had been, and in general Wiccans and other pagan alternatives rubbed along with their Christian counterparts quite well.

  “Well, the offer’s still there, and please don’t underestimate the dead man nailed to a tree, remember he came back to life and that resurrection brings hope to all.”

  A year ago, Ed wouldn’t have said that, he’d have just blushed and walked off, glowing red with embarrassment. But since his experience resealing the tomb at Skendleby he’d been travelling through a different landscape.

  “Don’t try to patronise us, Reverend Joyce, I choose my words carefully. You’re not talking to weak fabulists with heads stuffed full of Margaret Murray nonsense about unbroken millennia of secret rituals, of the Twilight saga or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  “Ours is the practice of now, the power of stone, of herb, of blood. The community of women evolves and that is what you and your male God fear. I will concede that you may think you act out of kindness, but really you act out of anxiety and the desire to control. And this community is for women who have escaped that control and are evolving a more imaginative and spiritual space.”

  Ed could see that the others, to various degrees, agreed and he was aware that all the while Olga had been speaking, Jenna had stared fixedly at him, unblinking, hard-eyed. Grief took all types of form and as a vicar he’d seen most of them. But this was something else and it disturbed him, and not on account of himself or his faith. It wasn’t the words: the faith and gender dialectics he was familiar with. He would have liked to have talked to Olga one-to-one, but that wasn’t possible so he prepared to leave.

  “Ed, what are you doing here? How lovely to see you.”

  The voice came from behind and he turned to see a tall, redheaded woman, and with her, Claire. She came across to him and kissed him on the cheek; it was the first warmth he’d felt since arriving at the house, and he was delighted to see her. As he lowered his face to return the kiss, his chin snagged briefly on the large intricate necklace she was wearing. It was white, like polished bone or ivory, but he couldn’t imagine that anyone with her sensitivities or belief system would wear either of those. Perhaps it was synthetic or some type of stone, but he had no time for further reflection.

  “Ed, let me introduce Margaret, it’s her house and I’m sorry but I’ve been monopolising her.”

  Ed said hello to Margaret who shook hands and smiled at him with more warmth than any of the others had. He could see they were staring at Claire as if she were the centre of the community. Well, all except Olga who looked pretty sour, but Ed thought perhaps that was her default setting.

  “I just came to offer my condolences and any help that I could give.”

  He paused.

  “But apparently that wasn’t needed.”

  Claire smiled back at him.

  “No, it seems I’ve got that gig, Ed.”

  “I didn’t know that you were connected.”

  “Well, it’s a small world and I think my brand of psychic healing will be sympathetic. Listen, I’ll walk you out and we can catch up.”

  It was only later, when he’d had time to think about it, that he realised she’d seemed completely at home there: in fact, she’d acted as if she was the hostess and that the house and the community were hers. At the car he’d asked her how Giles was. She’d giggled before replying.

  “Oh, he’s only gone and got himself arrested!”

  Ed stood there waiting for the punch line, a look of humorous expectation covering his face

  “No, I mean it, they’re still holding him.”

  “But what for? Is he all right, are you?”

  “Me, yes, of course I am.”

  “And Giles?”

  “Just typical of Giles, isn’t it? He’s managed to get himself arrested as a suspect for the murder: this one here, how ridiculous.”

  She laughed.

  “But I expect they’ll soon let him go, he’d have no idea how to kill anybody poor darling. I better go back in now, Ed, they’ll be waiting. Byeee.”

  When he got back to the rectory, Mary was out. He remembered she’d gone to the theatre group’s technical walk through preceding the dress rehearsal. He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not: he needed time to think and did that best alone, but the rectory was vast and rambling and isolation fed paranoia. He went through to his study and took out the documents he’d copied: the ones Thompson had found and then hidden before his death. The Davenport file from the fifteenth century he’d have dismissed as the product of a ruined mind a year ago, but not now. The other file, if a specialist in the field like Thompson had not verified it, he’d have considered a forgery, and a potentially valuable one. It was a previously unknown and unpublished document, found in the Davenport archive and dating to the early years of the seventeenth century.

  To Ed’s amazement, the author was the Queen’s notorious conjuror and alchemist, Dr John Dee. Ed knew that Dee had been the warden of Manchester College from 1595-1608 and had kept a diary which Ed, in fact, had seen in the Bodleian Library as a student. There had always been conjecture that because of its occult and heretical nature, much of Dee’s work had remained hidden. John Aubrey, the seventeenth century antiquarian, had indeed suggested in his ‘Brief Lives’ that only a third of what Dee wrote ever came to light. Ed wished that this extract had remained similarly occluded.

  Before he began to read he tried to make some sense of his visit. He’d found the woman Olga compelling, almost erotically so, and this unusual reaction disturbed him. He wanted to talk to her again but considered that was probably not a good idea. Meeting Claire had thrown him, particularly her light-hearted treatment of Giles’s arrest, but at least with her the women in the house were in good hands. But why had the girl from the house been killed and why were the police not releasing any information?

  Why had he found the texts on the day the news of the murder broke? They dealt with ritual killing, the taking and secreting of bones for future use as trophies: bones. Like the Neolithic bone he’d been told to bury in the church crypt after the sealing up of Devil’s Mound. He remembered the unearthly singing he’d heard as he’d done this.

  Please, God, this killing wasn’t connected. Please, God, it hadn’t started again.

  Chapter 6: Greeks Bearing Gifts

  The cell door opened; a metallic spike of noise.

  “Get up and come with me.”

  He took his hands from over his eyes and blinked into the light, anything was better than spending another moment in this cell with its hard pallet and cloying smell of antiseptic masking undertones of vomit and urine. He got to his feet and shuffled after the police guard feeling unreal in the overalls they’d made him wear when they took his c
lothes. He made a mental note to remember that however awkward the police may seem when you meet them, on the street it was infinitely better than when they invite you to stay over at their place.

  On TV shows suspects get a cooked breakfast, he’d had nothing since late afternoon yesterday; perhaps they were trying to break him down. Or perhaps what the Daily Mail was always on about was true: the public services were inefficient and shambolic. Maybe McDonald’s should run the country’s law and order service. At least he’d get a sausage and egg McMuffin.

  A door was opened and he was shown into a dimly lit room. He recognised the bitch who’d tricked him then locked him up, the detective from Skendleby, and a man who he guessed must be the duty solicitor. He remembered asking them to contact Claire and wondered if they had. He knew he should feel frightened but this last year he’d been haunted, threatened and terrified to such an extent that they’d already turned the volume up to eleven. He remembered that Theodrakis had used the phrase “walking through hell”, and he hadn’t quite got it at the time; he got it now.

  There was one consolation, however: when you walk through hell things can’t get much worse.

  “We’d like to ask you some questions, Dr Glover. Have you any objections?”

  He giggled, couldn’t help himself. It was so ridiculous, as if he were in a position to refuse. It was the pallid male cop asking, not the beautiful black one. He supposed she would watch till he made a mistake and then swoop for the kill. And he would make a mistake; there were so many to choose from, so many things he couldn’t afford to tell them. Things he’d seen here and in Greece, things he’d done, things he should have done, things he’d hidden...

  He must have lost himself in the train of thought because the woman suddenly leaned forward and said sharply:

  “I hope you are going to be co-operative, Dr Glover, because saying nothing and giggling like an idiot isn’t improving your already very difficult position.”

  For a moment he considered replying “no comment” like the criminals on TV do moments before they confess, but he managed to pull himself together.

  “No, I’m sorry, I think I’m a little disorientated.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Please, I’d like a coffee.”

  They brought him a coffee and so it began. It went as he’d expected. He couldn’t explain why he’d been able to describe the taking of bones from a body that exactly matched the murder. He couldn’t convince them that he had no part in the similar attacks the previous year, and he couldn’t make them believe that his presence at the scene of a series of gruesome murders in Greece with the same MO was merely a coincidence. He almost agreed when the female cop synthesised his replies for him.

  “So, Dr Glover, you agree that you’ve been on the scene of savage brutal killings both here and in Greece. You also agree, despite the fact that neither the police in Greece nor here released any evidence concerning the peculiar method of these killings, that you were able to divulge it with great accuracy to me yesterday. What would you consider was the common factor in all theses killings?”

  “I can see what you’re trying to get me to say but what I told you came from archaeological sites which, apart from the recent discovery at the Hall, date back to the Neolithic, about five thousand years ago.”

  “Ah yes, I remember. I also remember you saying that all that evidence has, rather inconveniently for you, gone missing. Whereas the evidence of the vicious sickening murder of a young woman, which we have managed not to lose, you were able to describe accurately. Could you explain that for us?”

  “No, you don’t get what I’m trying to say. I know what it sounds like but…”

  He ground to a halt, but they were still waiting.

  “But…”

  He put his hands over his face.

  “Take him back to the cells; give him time to think up some more sensible answers.”

  Later in the cell, he wondered why he hadn’t mentioned Theodrakis. But perhaps Theodrakis didn’t really exist, perhaps he was mad, perhaps he had done it just like they said. It seemed it could get worse than walking through hell. He lay down on the bunk and started to cry.

  *******

  Back in the incident room, Viv had just factored a conversation with the investigating officer on the isle of Samos into her already cramped schedule for the remains of the day. The political situation in Greece, she knew, was continuing to deteriorate with daily acts of civil disobedience filling the democratic vacuum. So she didn’t expect much from Astinome Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, but she was grateful that he was going to take the time to ring her.

  In the meantime, Jimmy was reading the files sent through from Greece. She planned to spring the fruits of this on the suspect in the hope that this triangulation of guilt would make him crack then confess.

  She was reasonably confident; it was a technique that had worked for her previously and she took time to think of her other preoccupation: where to live. She didn’t know how long she’d be here and didn’t want to stay in her present accommodation. She’d talked to her dad about the advisability of climbing on to the property ladder; she could afford something quite smart here which she couldn’t in London. There were available new build apartments all over and she had an appointment to see one in Didsbury.

  She’d left the mess of her emotional life in London so was in no hurry to get back. Here she was a strong single woman with a reputation unsullied by the aftermath of her last affair. Well, it had been an affair to him: it had meant more to her. So she would keep open her options to apply for a permanent transfer to Manchester if this went well. If it didn’t and she went back she could rent out the apartment: prices would rise again, recessions never lasted forever. She got no further; Jimmy was back in the room.

  “I’ve read the files, boss.”

  She relished the title: it was the first time anyone here had called her that.

  “Go on, what have we got?”

  “Plenty from this: it’s pretty weird though, and some of it’s hard to believe. But I’m sure we’ve got our man, it’s the same thing over there, you know, the cutting out and taking of bones. Seems the whole island was in a state of terror: thought it was the work of the Devil. One of their senior detectives was among the victims, hope that doesn’t spread.”

  “Stick to the facts.”

  “Ok, well, like us, they never released the details, yet our archaeologist knew them.”

  “Thanks, that helps: I want you to go back to the women’s house and take statements, see if you can establish a motive.”

  “But why? We’ve got it wrapped up here. He knows how it was done, which only the murderer could, and he’s no alibi.”

  “Maybe. Ok, probably, but we’ve not got all of it. No motive, and we’re still waiting for forensics on him.”

  “Wouldn’t they rather see you, Ma’am, they blanked me but opened up to you.”

  “That’s exactly why you should go. Sorry.”

  After he’d gone she read the Greek file: most of it made little sense, particularly the abrupt way the case was closed: a strange mixture of fortuitous suicides and mob rule taking its own savage vengeance before the police could make an arrest. But the killings were certainly similar, if not identical. There was some terrible agent at work here, and one she couldn’t equate with the collapsed archaeologist in the cells. The Greeks obviously hadn’t suspected him of anything.

  And there was something else bothering her: the feeling of menace she’d experienced on the way to interview the women hadn’t evaporated, and although the evidence pointed relentlessly at the archaeologist, something inside nagged away at her that maybe it wasn’t that simple. Time was moving on; she got up and headed for the interview room.

  They’d already brought him in and he sat slumped in the plastic school chair, hands on his lap. She felt a strange rush of sympathy for him. The room stank, an odour she couldn’t categorise, but rank all the same.

  �
�I hope you intend to be more cooperative this time, Dr Glover.”

  “I tried to be last time: I just don’t know how to answer the questions.”

  “Well, you can start off by telling me about your experiences on Samos.”

  Giles pushed his hands through his hair; he was sweating, on the point of tears.

  “It was meant to be a holiday.”

  Suddenly, Viv’s intuition clicked in and her reservations vanished: it was him, he was guilty, she could almost smell it on him.

  “But there was more to it, wasn’t there?”

  He nodded and she thought for a moment that he was about to confess.

  “So, go on, tell me what happened.”

  “There were things going on over there: fires, killings, murders - right across the island and I got mixed up in it.”

  “How did you get mixed up?”

  “I was given these bones to look after.”

  Viv felt the hairs on the back of her neck stick up, the duty solicitor leant forward to speak but she held up her hand and he kept silent.

  “Bones?”

  Giles sat thinking how to answer, and in the quiet Viv could hear the monotonous tick of the electric clock on the wall. The stench in the room seemed stronger: they sat waiting for him to continue.

  “They were bones that had been found on an archaeological site.”

  “And why did you have them?”

  She could see from his expression he knew where this was taking him. He didn’t answer. She saw the sweat beading his face. His stomach rumbled; he belched and put his hand over his mouth. Soon she’d have him.

  “They were meant for the police.”

  “Why was that, Dr Glover, if they were ancient bones? What would the police want with them?”

  He didn’t answer, just sat with his eyes closed rocking backwards and forwards on the cheap chair. She repeated.

  “Why would the police want them if they were ancient bones?”

  He appeared to have stopped listening.