Bury Them Deep

by Oswald, James

  Bale shook his head like a disappointed teacher. ‘She had to be cleansed of all her sins. Purged. That takes time. She’s ready now, her soul pure. That’s why they’ve all come.’

  ‘I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,’ McLean said, but that was a lie. He had an idea; he just didn’t like where that idea was taking him.

  ‘Oh, come on, Tony. The Brotherhood of the Rose Well? The Red Abbot? The Oak Hill Druids? It’s all connected. You’ve even found bones up on the moors over there.’ Bale waved a hand in the approximate direction. ‘That should never have happened of course. Bury them deep. That’s what old man Bayne always said. But his son couldn’t be bothered. Chucked them in the gorse and hoped no one would ever notice. Probably for the best he came to a premature end, him and his sister both. The Baynes throw up a bad ’un every few generations.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Frankly I’m surprised that you don’t. It’s all there, in the stories and the news. If you know where to look. Grace Ramsay knows, or at least part of it. All those missing girls, and now her daughter among them.’ Bale made a noise that might have been a laugh, although there was no humour in it, no humanity.

  ‘So what you’re trying to tell me is that these people are . . . what? Some kind of secret society of cannibals?’ McLean couldn’t help himself. He shook his head in disbelief even as the implications of Bale’s words began to knit together in his mind.

  ‘The blood and the body of Christ, Tony. It’s not cannibalism. Least, not to those who have faith. They will come from this ceremony pure of spirit and soul. Cleansed in a way your narrow atheist mind can’t hope to comprehend.’

  Something of Bale’s words sparked a memory then. A few days earlier, when McLean had been sitting in the kitchen at the rectory, talking to Mary Currie. It wasn’t revenge that drove this lunatic to do the horrific things he did. He truly believed this nonsense about sin and forgiveness, about doing God’s work. Did he think of these people as kindred spirits? Is that why he wanted to join them? But that couldn’t be it. He’d said he was here for Anya, not the rest of them.

  Movement in the corner of his eye dragged McLean’s attention away from Bale for a moment. The back door to the farmhouse had opened and a line of people were walking out into the sunlight. More like a group of ramblers than anything, they moved slowly across the yard, through the closely parked cars and out towards the old shed. Fifteen, maybe twenty of them. They disappeared from view before long, but he had no difficulty guessing where they were going. He also recognised three of the men from the briefing notes DI Ritchie had shown him. Gordon McTavish, Jonathan Scanlan and Dominic Smythe, all flown in on their private jets at short notice. They didn’t lead here, but mingled with the others as if they were all equal, all friends together and heading off on some grand adventure.

  ‘What the hell are they doing?’ He turned back to Bale as he asked the question, but Bale was gone.

  For a moment McLean wondered if he’d not caught too much sun and hallucinated the whole thing. He stepped away from the window, over to the packing case where he’d seen Bale sitting. There wasn’t much light filtering into the dark room, but it was enough to see the mark in the heavy dust left by someone’s ample buttocks.

  He took out his phone again, only there was still no signal. What he should do was work his way back out of the old stone steadings, off up the track towards the road and find help. Something was going on here, something bad. It made no sense to go poking his nose into it before backup arrived. On the other hand, trying to get off the farmyard would take him the same way as all the people he knew were up to no good. Some of them knew the area, the woods and fields around here, far better than him. He could stay put and wait for Harrison and the cavalry to arrive, but Bale knew where he was, and Bale had some plan in mind. That couldn’t be good. He had to do something, if only to avoid the nutcase coming back with a knife while he hid in the shadows.

  There were three doors out of the room. One opened onto the courtyard where all the cars were parked. He’d have known if it had been opened. Bale certainly hadn’t gone out the way McLean had entered through, as it was close by the window. That meant he had to have gone deeper into the complex of interlinked buildings.

  Stone steps led down to a larger shed that must once have been used to store hay, back in the days when it was made by gangs of men wielding scythes and pitchforks. Insufficient light filtered in through small, grimy skylight windows, casting more shadow than illumination. The packed-earth floor smelled strange, a fishy scent overlaying the dirt, and, as he noticed it, so too did McLean hear the faint sound of running water. He remembered the first time he’d been to this farm, the strange pond around the front of the house, and the stone building from which Sandy Bayne had emerged, a large fish clutched in his arms like a sleeping infant. What had the man said it was all built for? Cleansing the fish before eating it. A week in the stone-lined pond, no food. Fresh water and nothing else.

  ‘Fuck.’ McLean wasn’t much given to swearing at the best of times, but there, in the darkened hay barn, as all the hints and clues began to fall into place, he felt like it was justified. He followed the sound of running water, finding doors and passageways, one after another. He’d seen old farm steadings before, knew how complicated and confusing they could be. The longer the farm had existed, the more additions, lean-tos and extensions were grafted onto what might once have been a simple design. Old doorways blocked off, narrow passages formed that led seemingly to nowhere, big open barns and small storerooms in random succession. Woodhill Farm, by all accounts, had been here since the time of the monastery. A thousand years of building had turned it into a terrible labyrinth. And somewhere at the heart of it all, he knew, was a monster as horrific as any minotaur.

  McLean paused a moment to get his bearings, something that wasn’t easy given the turns and dead ends. Somewhere close by a door creaked, then he heard the click-clack of a latch. Heading in that direction, he came to another room, this with a concrete floor, a raised plinth in its centre. Some kind of engine house, he guessed, and sure enough up in the eaves he could just make out the shapes of wheels, and gaps in the stone walls where pulleys would go to ancient threshing machines and the like. The sound of water was louder here, spattering as if from a great height. It came from a frameless window, more a neatly lined hole in the wall that opened onto almost complete darkness. Peering in, he felt the dampness first. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw the cast iron spokes that made up a huge water wheel. Its wooden buckets had long since rotted, water cascading over the frame and away into the bowels of the earth.

  Further along from the water wheel, he found the creaking door. It opened onto stone steps leading down into darkness. He pulled out his pen torch and played the light over glistening, moist walls. The steps themselves were dry enough, dust-free and worn in the middle by the passage of many feet. A rope handrail looped between iron sconces on one side, but the steps themselves weren’t so steep that it was needed. At the bottom, even flagstones lined a narrow corridor, with alcoves to each side at regular intervals. McLean could tell by the cool dampness of the air that this was underground, and after a few dozen steps he worked out, more or less, where he was.

  The alcoves housed water troughs, each fashioned from slabs of slate big enough to be used to make snooker tables. Most were empty, but towards the end of the corridor he found a half-dozen filled almost to the brim with water. At first he thought that was all they were filled with, but then a fin broke the surface of one. Playing the light on it, he saw a fish, a carp if he’d learned anything, swaying from side to side as if it were moving against a current. Was this one ready now? Cleansed of all taint by a week of starvation in the pool outside, then left here to stay fresh until it was time for it to be eaten?

  McLean shuddered at the implications of that thought. He hurried on down the corridor, and eventually
came to another set of steps leading upwards. The daylight was almost blinding as he emerged at the top. He had to blink and squint to see that he was where he thought he would be, at the edge of the pond. The trees across the other side swayed in a gentle breeze, and looking up he could see a few wispy clouds, the first in weeks. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen again, but there was still no signal. Perhaps unsurprising given that he’d not moved far from the last place he’d looked, but it felt suspicious all the same. The last time they’d been here, both Donaldson and Harrison had received calls on their Airwave sets, after all.

  A scream overhead had him shrinking back into the doorway of the fish house, but it was only a buzzard wheeling in the hot sky.

  Looking back down at the pool, he noticed something strange about the water. As still as glass, it mirrored the movements of the bird and the slow build of clouds, but there was a scum clinging to the edges where the surface met the stone. McLean crouched down, dipped a finger in the water and brought it back up to his nose. The faintest whiff of coal tar. A little further along, he saw wide stone steps under the surface, disappearing into the depths, and the scum around the edge there was thicker. Something had been washed here, in this supposedly pure water. Someone?

  Suspicious, he traced his footsteps back to the entrance to the fish house. A switch at the top of the steps turned on lights all along the corridor below. Back down under the ground, the lone fish still swum lazily in its narrow slate tank, unaware of its inevitable fate. Moving along the corridor, McLean paid a little more attention to the other alcoves, now that the lights were on and he wasn’t relying on the faint beam from his torch. Most of them were filled with tanks, either dry or empty but filled with still, dark water. A couple of them, facing each other on opposite sides of the narrow corridor, had heavy wooden doors leading to small chambers, and it didn’t take a genius to see how much they looked like cells. Both doors were locked, but each also had a heavy iron key pushed into the hole. He opened the first, clicking the light switch beside it as he peered inside. A low-watt bulb hung from the centre of an arched ceiling that matched the shape of the alcove. An iron bedstead stood against one wall, and in the far corner, a bucket with a lid on it made for a toilet. That same scent of coal tar soap came to him, stronger here.

  Taking the key from the lock, McLean stepped further into the room. The floor was hard-packed earth, darker in the middle where it had been scuffed by recent feet. Crouching down, he peered more closely at the stained mattress and thin blanket, sniffed the damp, cold air. There was nothing to prove it, no carelessly discarded evidence, no clothing rolled up and left under the bed, but nevertheless he was certain that this was where Anya Renfrew had spent the past two weeks. He couldn’t begin to imagine what hell that must have been. Standing again, he carefully retraced his footsteps to the corridor outside. It was time to get out of here and fetch a team of officers he could trust.

  He closed the door on the cell, locked it and put the key in his jacket pocket before heading back along the passage towards the steps leading up to the pond. As he did so, a change in the light alerted him to the presence of someone at the top. Turning to go back the other way, McLean realised too late the mistake he had made. Another man, larger than him, stood at the other end of the passageway.

  ‘You really shouldn’t be here, sir.’ Police Sergeant Andrew Donaldson hefted his extendable baton, just in case McLean had any ideas of making a run for it. Instead, he turned in time to see Sandy Bayne appear at the bottom of the steps.

  No way out.

  He was trapped.

  ‘I’m very disappointed in you, Sergeant. Didn’t you swear an oath to uphold the law?’

  They had taken his phone, pen torch and the couple of pairs of latex gloves he always kept in his pocket, but left McLean his wallet and warrant card. If Donaldson had noticed the lack of car keys, he’d not said anything about it. Neither had the police sergeant done anything more violent than cuff McLean’s hands behind his back and push him in the direction of the steps up to the pond, but he was in no doubt as to what they intended.

  ‘What did you hope to achieve by coming here, sir?’ the sergeant asked as they stepped once more into the sunlight. ‘I mean, I know you have a reputation for ignoring procedure at every turn, but . . .’ He shook his head, said nothing more. In front of them, Sandy Bayne led the way back towards the house. The path took them close to the edge of the pool, the steps leading down into black water.

  ‘I was trying to track down Norman Bale, if you really want to know.’ McLean played for time. Harrison and a team of officers couldn’t be all that far away, surely. But would they find him in time? Would they find him at all? The place was a rabbit warren. He’d have to leave some kind of trail, but how?

  ‘Bale?’ The sergeant stopped. ‘Why would he be here?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Sergeant. It’s obvious, isn’t it? He wants in on your little secret society. The Fraternitas de Rosae Fontis? Christ knows he’s been dropping hints about it for long enough. Partake of the hallowed flesh and sanctified blood and all his sins will be wiped clean? Then he can go back to doing God’s work like he’s always wanted to.’

  ‘It doesn’t work . . . You don’t . . .’ Donaldson stopped walking. McLean felt the grip on his arm loosen and he pulled away. He made it two paces before the sergeant caught a hold of him again, a heavy hand grabbing the fabric of his jacket, a second one snatching at the cuffs, missing. McLean tried to time it, although it had to look unintended. Swivelling as best he could, he shoved at the sergeant, one foot in to trip him over. They struggled briefly, and then both of them went over the edge into the pool.

  Hands tied behind his back, McLean fought to keep his head above water. It didn’t help that Donaldson was bigger than him and on top. Fortunately the pool wasn’t deep, and he’d tried to make it so that he was close to the steps anyway. Spluttering he hauled himself up and out as the sergeant came up behind and smacked him hard in the side of the head.

  ‘The fuck was that for?’ Donaldson shouted through the roaring sound in McLean’s ears. Then Sandy Bayne was standing directly in front of the two of them, his face grim.

  ‘Enough. We’re late already. Bring him.’

  ‘But he’s not one of us,’ the sergeant complained. ‘And I’m soaked through.’

  ‘He’s here. He was called. Bring him.’ Bayne turned his back and set off up the path. McLean allowed himself to be pushed forward, then fell into step a couple of paces behind. He hoped to hell that Harrison arrived soon, and that she had her wits about her. Even with clouds finally gathering, the trail of water the two of them left behind them wouldn’t last long.

  66

  It didn’t surprise him when he was half led, half pushed through the farmyard and back out along the route he’d come in by. Through the ruined cloisters, the path snaked around fallen masonry until it arrived at the middle of the three barrows, and there a dark hole opened in the ground. The arch of its entrance was far more ancient than anything built by monks, and the stone steps leading into the depths were worn with the passage of millennia. That sweet, cloying scent of decay wafted up from the earth like a desecrated grave. McLean shivered as much from the look and feel of the place as from his sodden clothing, although he did his best to pause long enough for a half-decent puddle to form on a bare slab of paving before allowing Donaldson to prod him forward. Resisting meant that the soaked police sergeant added his own damp to the mark too, even if it resulted in another painful blow to the ear.

  The stench disappeared the moment they crossed the threshold, and along with it the nagging dread that had urged McLean to keep away. They descended deep into the earth before he saw the first light, a flaming torch shoved into an iron sconce set in the hewn rock of a tunnel. Their route took them ever downwards, and back in the direction of the old farmyard, the farmhouse and the pool beyond. As if the thought of it were a cue, McL
ean began to hear the sound of running water again. And soon enough, the source of it became clear.

  It reminded him in many ways of the man-made caves at Gilmerton Cove; an unhappy memory of the case that had first brought Norman Bale back into his life. The cavern he stepped into was far bigger than that whole complex, hidden beneath those suburban streets. Rough-hewn stone walls climbed up in an almost perfect dome to a point far over his head in the middle. Not that he could have stood in the middle, as that was where the water bubbled up from the ground in a constantly flowing spring. It filled a circular pool, raised up from the gritty stone floor like a font the size of a jacuzzi, then overflowed at one point to gurgle away down a drain. If it was red, McLean couldn’t tell. Everything was painted in shades of orange and yellow by the flickering torchlight reflecting off the sandstone. The smoke must have been escaping through a hole somewhere in the ceiling, as there was no smell of it in the cave. Instead a kind of sweet odour pervaded; not the reek of death and decay from outside, but something equally unsettling.

  ‘Bring him.’ Bayne moved forward and the people parted like the Red Sea before him. All adults, as far as McLean could see. There were men and women in the crowd, so it was an equal-opportunities cult at least. They were dressed in street clothes, not particularly tidy, not Sunday best, and certainly not robes or something similarly wacky. He recognised again the faces from Ritchie’s surveillance files, and a couple of others whose names didn’t immediately spring to mind but would once he managed to get hold of current photographs of all the city’s great and good. Some stared back at him, faces questioning as he was led through the crowd. Others wisely ducked and turned away.

  ‘What is this?’ a voice demanded, but Bayne cut it short with a glare. Clearly he was in charge. The high priest for this unusual gathering.

  ‘The spring purifies, and the spring calls. We have all heard its summons. It has brought us our salvation, as it always has done, since people first walked this land.’ Bayne passed through the crowd as he spoke, and McLean could only follow, pushed as he was by Sergeant Donaldson.