by Nick Brown
“They wouldn’t have been interested in ancient bones would they, Dr Glover? But they were interested in your bones, weren’t they? So what do we deduce from that? As you’ve stopped talking I’ll fill in some of the blanks for us shall I?”
She gave him a chance to answer but he didn’t so she went in for the kill.
“I can fill in the blanks because I’ve read the Greek police reports on the case and in a few moments I’ll be talking to their investigating officer, then I’ll know exactly what you were up to on Samos. And I can guess that the bones you had on Greece were the same type that you told us about here. I’m right, aren’t I?”
It was a rhetorical question; she had no intention of letting him talk, yet.
“So, let’s think about what type of bones the Greek police would have been interested in shall we? We know it wasn’t ancient bones. But the bones you had weren’t ancient bones were they, Dr Glover? No, the bones you had were modern, very modern, weren’t they?”
He didn’t answer; she raised her voice and it seemed to fill the small, fetid room.
“They were modern bones, the bones of the victims, weren’t they?”
There was a weak semi-audible reply.
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Dr Glover, you’ll have to speak louder for the tape.”
But he never got the chance to: the door opened and a police woman came in.
“Sorry to disturb you, Ma’am, but they said you’d want to know this at once. There’s a Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis of the Greek police on the phone wanting to talk to you.”
Chapter 7: The Devil’s Mark
“After much agitation and discmforte in a storme of hayle, thunder and lyghtening rode beyond Stopford to the halle at Skyndleby; where despite feares for the poore health of my son, plague being rife in Manchester, stayed the night in order to performe certain actions, much against my wille.”
Ed leant back in his chair, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach: he knew enough of the author by now to understand that his usage of the word ‘actions’ meant conjuring up spirits. So had Tim Thompson, he’d underlined the word. He also knew that Dee, in his published diary, claimed to have burned all papers recording such actions. Well, it seemed he hadn’t and that either he or someone else had preserved and hidden them. He sat in an agony of indecision; he was fairly certain what he would find if he continued reading.
He walked to the window. Outside it was murky, the light opaque and uncertain. He thought he saw movement in the trees at the edge of the graveyard. He hoped it was just his eyes playing tricks in the gloom, he didn’t want to see the thing lurking there that drove him to the fringe of madness last year. He was a stronger man now, but even so there were things walking the earth that no one could face down, and he should know he’d tried. But he also knew you couldn’t dodge what was coming: God wouldn’t let you.
He went back to his desk where the manuscript lay in the pool of light from the Angle poise lamp and sat inside the comforting illuminated circle to think. He knew that John Dee, conjuror to Queen Elizabeth, had been given a living in remote Manchester to get him out of London for some undisclosed reason. Ed had seen Dee’s desk, with the Devil’s mark burned into it, in the old college buildings by Manchester Cathedral. He remembered that some scandal had led to Dee’s move to Manchester.
The posting had been tantamount to exile, but had turned out to be worse than that. He’d walked into something that his reputation ensured he’d never be able to wriggle out of. It was just his luck that his time in Manchester coincided with an outbreak of one of the periodic infestations of evil at Skendleby; this one occasioned by the necromantic dabbling of one of the Davenports at the end of the fourteenth century. Ed’s friend, the last of the Davenports, called it their legacy. Ed thought that Dee’s arrival in Manchester must have seemed a blessing to the Davenports. Not a blessing for Dee, though, as the next highlighted passage clearly demonstrated.
“I discovered they had meddled with bones to avert somme spelle or treacherie; this they in divers ways shewed me. Yet in defence of my soule I sweare that when I was prevailed upon to trie my power the girl was already somme time dead. Being dead when first I arrived.”
The mention of a ritual using human bones gave Ed the horrors; it was too close to his own experience. Dee had been through the same nightmare as he had, but it brought no comfort and there was worse to come.
“Heere in Skyndleby there seeme to be shadows that hover and flit rounde aboute the halle and churchyard. The place is bleake and emptie save fore a ridge with rockie edge that reares up out of the dismal plaine. Nearabouts there is a small mounde of dark repute whiche I feare Sir Edmund in his anxietie has tampered with.”
Dee’s thoughts mirrored Ed’s initial impressions of the area. It seemed that Dee had trodden the same path he now trod, the path which had driven Heatly-Smythe to suicide in the eighteenth century. There was one sheet of text left to read, and Ed was pretty certain he knew where it was leading.
“They had assayed some actions of their own: being led to these by a local cunning woman who I believe better shoulde weare the title of sorceress, or as Cicero woulde style it Witch. I thinke that by this acte she meante them evill not good.”
A picture of the women’s house entered his mind, particularly the image of Olga with her heavy flaxen hair in braids. Then he thought of Claire: what had she been doing there? Why did she seem so at home?
But lucky for the women that she was there rather than the Witch that Dee wrote about, who had preyed on the Davenports. All the same, she’d taken the news of Giles’s arrest very calmly: seemed to find it amusing. This had reassured Ed at the time, but Giles had still not been released. The police hadn’t named him, just confirmed a man was helping with their enquiries. He’d seen it on television; the elegant black woman heading up the case had refused to answer any other questions. He didn’t want to dwell on the implications of this so he turned back to the text.
“It came upon me with awfule force that this my presente situation is what Mr Walker, my Skryer, had seene in the crystal severall years befor but whiche did at the time make none sense. Now him being deade, killed somewhere in the region of the empire known as Hungary, I no longer have the powre; the local skryer, Mr Hikman, whom I begin to mistrust, being a man of no skill. Nowe I muche wish I had heeded Mr Walker’s warning.”
Ed recognised these references from his own reading of Dr Dee’s diaries, and the fact that they seemed to validate the authenticity of the document made things worse. But he only had one brief paragraph to go.
“We travelled to a farm some little distance away towards Handeforthe assayed an action but have little faith that it can take effect, they had meddled too muche already. Before we started I did meete the cunning woman who did looke at me in a strange and chauncey fashion. I liked not this looke. Today I received news from Manchester that my poore boy is deade. I am cursed”
That, to Ed’s relief, was the end of the main body of the text. There was just one other sentence that appeared after a gap, at the foot of the page, as if added later in great haste.
“There are shadows, something watches.”
*******
He sat for a moment in the silence as the psychic anguish of those last words resonated across the centuries. Then he got up and crossed to the window; outside it was now fully dark. High above the trees patches of dirty ragged cloud were being blown across the pitted face of the moon. The wind must have got up while he was immersed in his reading, as if the words themselves had the power to conjure a storm.
He considered taking the papers to Davenport, feeling that the old man’s stoic common sense would give him the perspective he needed. But since his stroke, Davenport was fragile: so maybe it would be better done during the hours of daylight. He was considering rereading the text when he heard the chime of the front door bell. Some seconds later, the door of his study opened.
Mary came in and Ed could see from the shadows thrown across
the hall behind her that there was someone waiting.
“Ed, you’ve got a visitor and you need to see her, I think there’s something wrong.”
Mary seemed unsettled, which was unusual: of all the people he knew, his wife was the least likely to overreact. As he was thinking this Mary showed in the visitor. She was striking in a gaunt way. Tall, she was wearing a deep red, knee length dress that gave her a slightly dated look. Her face, although beautifully shrouded by long black hair, seemed slightly too sharp and there were dark hollows under her eyes. Ed vaguely recognised her from somewhere, but couldn’t place it. Mary made no introduction, just said as she left the room:
“Let me know if you decide you want a cup of something.”
So it was left to the woman, who Ed judged to be in her early twenties, to introduce herself.
“You are priest, no?”
“Well, yes, I can be described that way but if you are looking for a Roman Catholic…”
She cut him off.
“No, there is no Catholic priest near here, only you. Besides, it is you I need to talk to in this moment.”
“Well, what is it that I can do for you? By the way, I’m Reverend Joyce, but please call me…”
Again she cut him off
“Of course, I know who you are, I know much about you, many times I hear Mr Carver talk of you.”
“Well, I hardly think you’ll have heard much good about me from Mr Carver.”
“No, nothing good: is all bad.”
She hesitated for a moment then added softly:
“Very bad. He thinks that you are a very bad man. But I need to talk to you.”
“So, do I take it that you work for Mr Carver?”
“Yes, sorry, I should have say, my name is Marika, I am his housekeeper. I am Slovenian, come here to work.”
Ed finally placed her, she was one of the ever-changing relay of Eastern European girls that Carver employed, on the cheap and, Ed expected, illegally, to run the Hall. None of them lasted very long if the village gossip was to be believed.
“Well, how can I help you, Marika? And perhaps I can offer you a cup of tea and a piece of cake?”
“Thank you, no, there is not time and I will be missed.”
He was sorry for this, he could tell that she had been tempted by the offer of cake, she looked too thin, not fashion model thin, poverty thin.
“Perhaps you should take some cake with you. I hear life isn’t too easy in the Hall working for Mr Carver.”
“It is not so hard, he is not a nice man but I have known worse. He does not beat us or make us give blow jobs like others. In fact, I think he hardly sees that we exist. Perhaps I will take some cake but first I must tell you about what happens in the hall.”
“Things to do with Carver?”
“No, but things that frighten him, things that should not be there, shadows of things you cannot see. Two girls have left because of these things.”
“If it’s so bad, Marika, why don’t you leave?”
“If you had ever been to my village you would not ask such a thing, there is no work, the economy is broken.”
She looked uncertain what to say next. Ed thought she was wondering how much she could trust him. Then she went on.
“Where would I go? I am not legal, I have not papers: anyway, my family need the money I send home, and at least here I do not have to be whore.”
She looked Ed straight in the eyes as she said this last bit, as if challenging him to judge her. He didn’t.
“I would like to help but I don’t know what to do. Mr Carver doesn’t like me, he’s reported me to the police, he’d not listen to anything I said.”
“But you are brave man: I watched as you danced and prayed with the spirits by the mound last year. Other priests would not have done that.”
He was shocked that he had been seen and didn’t know how to reply; he’d hoped the ritual he’d performed was dead and buried. She carried on.
“Carver is frightened, he think by destroying old building and replacing with new he is safe. But he does not understand, he has no belief. Each change wakes the bad thing more. Even the birds: great black crows, like vampires, would not stay by the Hall anymore. Have you not noticed how empty are the trees?”
Ed had noticed: not that he would ever forget the feeling of those birds as they swarmed over him by the mound, pecking and tearing. Even though later he came to understand that in some strange way they had been helping him, he was relieved that they’d left the area. Now it occurred to him that if what she said was true, the disappearance of the birds was something to fear. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t reply. Marika carried on to the point she had come to make.
“It is your duty as priest to stop this thing: you have done it before, there is no one else who can.”
She must have noticed that he was trying to object, and put up a hand warning him to stop.
“No, you will listen. You must stop Carver from knocking down the chapel and building his development by the mound. I know this you will do because you know what happen if you do not. You have read about murder of poor girl, do you want more added to your list of sins? Now I must go back, you will give me the cake?”
A minute later, Ed waved her off from the front door and watched as her slight figure, clutching the pathetic parcel of cake wrapped in cling film, merged into the dark. Something inside urged him to call out to her to come back: apprehension triggered by a dread of what consequences this meeting might provoke, and by how vulnerable she looked. But just as he opened his mouth to shout, his mobile rang and he fished in his trouser pocket to see who was calling. Then his automatic response overrode his intuition.
“Hello, Reverend Ed Joyce speaking.”
“Ed, I know this must come as a surprise but I need to talk to you: it’s Olga Hickman.”
It was a surprise and an image of the woman tossing her head as she had lectured him filled his mind, to be replaced by the realisation that she had called him Ed, as if they were close.
“I’m a bit busy at the moment…”
She talked over him.
“Ed, this is really important; I know we got off to the wrong start but I need to meet you. Something is dreadfully wrong but I can’t discuss it over the phone.”
“Well, I...”
“I understand that you might not want us to be seen together, it doesn’t need to be local, my business takes me all round the region.”
He understood the point and the image of a clandestine meeting gave him a slight frisson of anticipation, but it would not do and he started to object.
A couple of minutes later he was replacing the mobile in his pocket, having agreed a time and place. He was trying to justify this to himself on the grounds that he had gone to the house to offer help, so he could hardly refuse it at the first request. Then the image of Olga was replaced in his mind by a vague recollection that it was the second time that day he had encountered the name Hickman. Then it hit him: Hickman was the name of the skryer Dee had used and mistrusted.
It was only then that he remembered Marika - but by then she was already approaching the back door of Skendleby Manor.
Chapter 8: Less Said Soonest
In the car, Anderson even made an attempt at conversation; what right had he to act friendly as if they were old acquaintances. At least they were in an unmarked car, rather than a squad car, but even so he got them to let him out a couple of blocks from the house. He could imagine all the hands twitching at the lace curtains if they’d dropped him off outside. Maybe he was becoming paranoid, but considering the course his life had taken over the last year perhaps paranoia was the logical response.
He felt confused, dirty and ashamed, but there was something else: he felt unreal, as if his grip on what had happened was too tenuous for him to cling to. No one had been to see him and for all he knew no one had tried to find him. Perhaps he was dead and this was indeed Hell.
But he found he’d retained enoug
h humanity to check that he didn’t smell too much before he reached the front door. It was like history repeating itself, and he remembered his first stressed out visit to Claire when he had been equally unsure of his reception. Now he loved her totally: she’d saved him, changed his miserable life. So why hadn’t she tried to contact him while he was detained? He told himself that perhaps she had tried, but because of the circumstances of his arrest, the police had kept him screened off from anyone. They had treated him like shit, the remembrance of it made him want to cry.
He’d gone there to help, and they’d tricked him into telling them things he didn’t understand. He’d been honest with them and they’d locked him up. They’d had no motive and no evidence, but even when they let him go they offered no apology, not even an attempt at an explanation.
All she had said, that bitch, the one who pretended to be understanding then tricked him and locked him up on his own for almost three days, was that following enquiries in Greece they were releasing him. Enquiries were still ongoing and he was not to leave the area. Even he had worked out that they had no forensic or even circumstantial evidence to link him to the victim. No apology: the last thing she had said before telling Anderson to take him home had been:
“However, you need to be very careful for two reasons, Dr Glover: first because you are still very much part of our enquiries; but most important is the fact that the only people who know the method of the killing are us, the murderer and you, assuming, for the moment, that the last two don’t constitute a single category. So, if any of the details leak out we’ll know who to come for won’t we?”
Of all the things that had been said to him in there this was the most chilling. It chilled him so much that the protest he’d been about to make concerning their lack of evidence turned to ashes in his mouth.
He’d reached the house by now: up until this point he’d not been able to work out if it would be easier if Claire was out or in, but her car was parked up so the choice didn’t need to be made. He was leaning against the door fumbling for his keys, but needn’t have bothered as the door swung open and he almost fell inside. Claire must have seen him and been waiting. She said: