Incantations

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  Clifford Stein sat on the floor with tears pouring down his cheeks. He was grieving for his son, but he was also grieving for himself and the part of him, the good and caring part of him, that died when he’d first made the pact with the Brotherhood. Crawford was right. They were barbarians, and what had transpired here tonight was truly barbaric. It had to end. And here tonight it would.

  He pulled the gun from his waistband and pointed it with a shaking hand at Finlay Crawford. ‘Finlay?’ Stein said.

  Crawford turned and Clifford Stein shot him four times in the chest, watching as the man fell to the floor next to him. Then he turned the gun on himself, placed the barrel against his temple and pulled the trigger once.

  At the sound of the final shot, Meg Johnson opened her eyes.

  Finlay Crawford felt the life oozing out through the holes in his chest as he tried to stem the flow of blood. He inched across the floor towards Gareth, reaching out with a bloodied hand. He grasped Gareth’s knee and pulled himself up until his face was within inches of the younger man. ‘This,’ he hissed through a grimace of pain and triumph, ‘This isn’t the end.’ Then he slumped forward and died.

  Meg Johnson lifted herself from the podium and walked unsteadily across to where Gareth sat. He watched her approach, watched the expressions on her face shifting and changing, unable to settle. There was a glazed look in her eyes and it wasn’t until she got to within feet of him that a spark of recognition lit them from within.

  She crouched down behind him, untied his bonds and then stood, looking first at the body of Finlay Crawford and from him to Clifford Stein.

  ‘This will take some explaining,’ she said.

  He squeezed her hand. ‘No it won’t,’ he said. ‘We were never here.’

  He sat in the front row of the stalls, smiling broadly as the audience around him got to their feet for the ovation. For the entire performance he’d sat next to the theatre reviewer for the Evening News, watching while the man scribbled down his critique by penlight. He’d not managed to read all of the review but odd phrase jumped out at him.

  …Meg Johnson is a welcome addition to the West End Stage… , …the purity of her singing voice lifts an otherwise mediocre score to the heady realms of opera… , …the assured performance by Meg Johnson as Claudia put this reviewer in mind of the late Marie Elise at her best…

  As Meg Johnson took her bow their eyes met and he flashed her a smile, allowing himself a small thrill of parental pride as he joined in the applause with the rest of the audience. A middle-aged woman sidled up to him, holding out her programme and a pen.

  ‘Would you mind awfully?’ she said. He dragged his eyes away from the stage, and looked at the woman vaguely. She narrowed her eyes. ‘You are him, aren’t you?’ she said, almost suspiciously. ‘You are Gareth Barker?’

  Gareth Barker – the name sounded alien to him still, but he knew he’d get used to it, as he’d gradually become used to Finlay Crawford and before that Oswald Bryce.

  It was only a name.

  He smiled and took the pen and programme. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I am.’

  DIGGING IN THE DUNES

  When the letter arrived it was clearly so much more a summons than a request; it was at best a strongly worded invitation. Had I been able to see what consequences would follow my acceptance I wouldn’t have re-arranged my workload for the next couple of weeks quite so eagerly.

  As senior partner in a busy law firm in the Essex town of Saffron Walden I was entitled to some holiday, and since Mary’s death less than two years ago, it was acknowledged that I had worked too hard, and not relaxed enough. Still, habit holds fast, and I felt guilty when I called my secretary into my office to help me plan the two weeks while I was away. Siobhan has been with me for years and she helped me enormously when my wife finally capitulated to the cancer that had invaded so silently. There was a time when her comfort hinted at more intimate help, but I may have misread the signs; bereavement throws all emotions into the melting pot and recognising what is real and what is grief was beyond me for a long while.

  The letter was addressed by hand, and in a hurried scrawl. The address was quoted slightly inaccurately, which probably delayed it a day or so, but my name was correct, and underlined. Peter Jennings. It was from Alan Fletcher, an old University friend of mine, who, I saw from the letter heading, was staying in a hotel at Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast. The letter was short, though not completely to the point. Alan wanted me to join him at the hotel, as soon as possible, as he was concerned about Robert Dunning. Why he was concerned he didn’t say, but the tone of the letter was definitely urgent, almost pleading. Certainly a summons, not a request.

  Siobhan and I spent an hour or more cancelling meetings, moving cases around the office, and generally soothing my conscience that all would continue to run smoothly until I returned. She then rang the hotel to ensure I would have a room there, as Alan’s letter hadn’t mentioned anything about one. She rang me on my mobile while I was packing to let me know a room had already been booked under my name; Fletcher had assumed my acceptance.

  It was less than two hours drive from my house to the hotel, but despite the apparently urgent need for my company I was in no mood to push the Jaguar to its limits. Instead I drove carefully, not slowly but reasonably. I spent the time thinking about Fletcher and Dunning.

  Alan Fletcher was a year older than me, and for some reason seemed to take it upon himself to act as a kind of mentor to me at Cambridge. We studied for the same Degree, but I was quite capable of finding my own way, and I can’t say I benefited from his attentions. Almost the opposite in fact, because on two occasions a tutor called me aside to ask if there was anything the college should know about our relationship. I was not sure if friendship was what I would call it; possession seemed more Fletcher’s game plan. Eventually, once I stood up to him, he relaxed and we did become friends, so much so that he was best man at my wedding and I was godfather to his first born.

  When I reached the coast my sense of urgency diminished even further, and with the full sun glaring through my windscreen I pulled off the road, onto a flattened area behind some sand dunes, and opened the door.

  A different character was Robert Dunning. He was in my year, and if anyone truly needed a guiding hand through his studies it was Dunning. Though, that’s not really the whole truth. His studies were no problem to him at all. He was one of the minds of our year, and he excelled with apparent ease. Where he was lacking was in the social graces, the getting on with the other students, which can make or break your University life. I recognised this immediately, and after some steering in the right direction, so did Alan. We took it upon ourselves, as a joint task, to ensure that Dunning was as protected as possible from the rigours of normal life. If that sounds overly protective it probably was but he was the ultimate innocent abroad, having had what was the most sheltered of upbringings. Being orphaned at six he was brought up by two eccentric maiden aunts who filled his head with knowledge, but not for living.

  With the engine cooling behind me I walked towards the brow of the dunes, where the sand and the dry grass gathered in a wind blown crown. Nearby I could hear the soft fall of the waves against the shore, the occasional cry of a seagull pulling my town fatigue with it. I had been more stressed than I knew; it was only as I felt the soft sand beneath my shoes, and heard the sounds of the coast, that I realised it.

  Then I heard different sounds, at first I thought it was the echo of the seagull’s cry on the wind. I listened and there it was again. It was almost like a woman singing, but in a very quiet voice, a voice, which was barely more than a whisper. Perhaps there was music, perhaps there was more than one voice, the sounds were so faint that I had to strain my ears to hear. All I knew was that it was the most haunting sound I had ever heard, and the saddest. It came with each roll of the tide as the waves fell upon the sand, like caresses from an ardent lover. I hurried up the hill, higher into the dunes, to have sight of the sea.
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br />   The car had obviously been driven into the hollow of the dune from another entry point from the road. I was almost upon it before I knew it was there. A Ford, with all three doors open to take advantage of the weather. The occupants were also taking advantage, not only of the sunshine but also of each other, so much so that they didn’t notice me at first. I wasn’t bothered about them, apart from their car radio, which was switched on and playing music, the sounds wafting into the sea air. It was harmless music, and not particularly loud or intrusive, but it disappointed me out of all proportion to its volume. Surely this was not what I had heard?

  ‘What’s your game?’

  The couple had seen me now, and the man, while trying to tuck in his shirt, was making a fair impression of anger.

  ‘You been spying on us?’

  He was younger than me, by about fifteen years, and had about him the rough edges which sometimes unjustly, but usually accurately, portrays violence of character.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, and immediately felt weakened by what was an unnecessary apology. ‘I’m parked over there,’ I gestured vaguely behind me. ‘I didn’t see you.’

  All the time the music from the car was filtering out into the daylight, like a shy child in the early days of school. It was familiar music, even to me, regularly played on most popular stations. It didn’t sound much like the music, or singing that had tempted me.

  ‘Hit him, Carl,’ the girl said. She was fully dressed, if a little disrupted. Her face looked almost pleased to be pulled away from her earlier endeavours.

  Carl looked uncertain. I am fit, even in my mid-thirties, over six feet tall, and with my naturally large frame I’m not a natural target for the Carl’s of this world.

  ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ I said. ‘From the car to the beach took me this way, that’s all.’ Before I could give them time to think, I headed back to my car.

  As I reached it, and triggered the central locking, I listened. The radio of the interrupted lovers was a faint swirl on the breeze, but there was nothing else. The other sounds were gone, if they ever existed.

  The hotel was a well-restored manor house of the seventeenth century. Ivy crept slyly up one side of the face of the building, a half unshaven beard partially obscuring the latticed windows. The gravel drive parted by some beech trees where parking spaces had been marked by small wooden stakes. To one side of the hotel I could see a golf course, probably nine holes, and to the other well tended grounds with shrubs so elegantly defined they offered the appearance of being artificial. I took my bags from the boot and made my way to reception.

  The girl there gave me directions to my room on the second floor, and I wandered off to find the staircase. It was near Alan’s room, but Dunning was on the third. The girl picked up the telephone as soon as I walked away from her, and I knew whose room she was calling.

  No sooner had I shut the door of my room behind me, and made a brief insubstantial survey of the interior, than there was a knock on the door. It was Alan Fletcher, of course, and he was clearly distracted in thought. He made all the right noises about how good it was of me to come so quickly, how was business and so on, but his mind was elsewhere. I guessed where from the sketchy details of his letter so I judged it best to broach the subject and get on with matters at hand.

  ‘Dunning?’ he queried, as if this was the first time he had thought of him. ‘Oh, he’s all right I suppose. Not much use to the dig, but that’s nothing new.’

  Fletcher and Dunning are amateur archaeologists. Nothing grand, it’s just something they enjoy in their spare time, but they’ve had a couple of good finds over the years, the results of which are now housed in various museums in London. The purpose of their stay in Aldeburgh was to explore the coastal area, with emphasis on the land slowly being reclaimed by the sea.

  Alan’s response was so relaxed that my initial reaction was one of anger.

  ‘If he’s all right, why the hell have you dragged me up here? Your letter made it all sound desperate.’

  Then I saw his face, and remembered that he had pounced on me the minute I’d arrived. His relaxed manner was his usual way of coping with a problem; the deeper the problem, the more relaxed he acted. It was an infuriating trait that I had half forgotten.

  ‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ he relented. ‘Though you’ll still think I’ve wasted your time.’

  I sat on the bed. ‘Let me be the judge of that. I am the solicitor, remember? I’m used to appraising what people tell me.’

  Alan took the armchair by the window. ‘Anyway, as I said in my letter, it does concern Dunning.’

  ‘Who, I take it is far from all right?’

  ‘That depends upon your point of view. Baxter thinks he’s having a whale of a time. Sorry,’ he said when he saw my look of puzzlement. ‘Baxter is the barman here; he’s sort of latched onto me. Quite different from the character that’s latched onto Dunning. I still don’t know her name, Dunning refers to her as his angel, but I think of her as the siren.’

  It was all I could do to stop myself from laughing. ‘Wait a minute. Are you telling me you’ve brought me all the way up here because Dunning has found himself a girlfriend? About time too.’

  While Alan and I had been guilty of various excesses of girls, drink, and so on at Cambridge, Dunning had remained firmly fastened to his studies. Seemingly neither interested in the company of either sex, nor in the usual social exchanges that pass for life at University. When he left, with first class honours, he disappeared into some research company where it was easy to imagine he spent his time locked in a laboratory being brilliant. Alan went into advertising, married twice, and had children. I married, no children. Dunning on the other hand, was never seen with, never mentioned, and never showed any interest in finding a wife, a lover, even a companion. If he had now, past thirty-five years of age, suddenly broken his habit and taken up with a girl, good luck to him.

  Alan looked uncomfortable. ‘Up to a point I agree. He’s been a new man these past couple of days since she came on the scene. What worries me is how much he’s changed. You know how innocent he is. He was making no secret of his inheritance the other night, when the two of us were talking in the bar. I didn’t think there was anyone else there, but when I came back from the bathroom, there she was, hanging onto him like a barnacle. It was obvious he didn’t know her name, and she didn’t bother to introduce herself to me. She monopolised poor Dunning, until it became so awkward I went to my room.’

  His voice tapered off and I pondered on what he had said. Dunning wouldn’t recognise a true angel from a gold-digger, so from that point of view he needed protection. Even so, having relished the joys of matrimony for precious few years, and having now endured their premature end, I was inclined to support Dunning in any relationship that produced happiness.

  Later when I got to the bar, a little after seven, Alan was already there, in spirited conversation with the barman. As I entered the bar I heard the barman say, ‘There’s more to it than that.’

  ‘Have I come in at the wrong moment?’ I asked ingenuously, as Baxter looked extremely put out by something.

  After the usual introductions Alan explained that he’d heard about an ancient ritual that used to be practised in the locality, the telling of which had annoyed the barman. I suggested we move away to a table in the window, and this we did, still waiting for Dunning to join us.

  ‘So what’s this story of yours?’ I asked.

  He took a long sip of his single malt and began. ‘For several decades at the end of the last century, and supposedly at the start of this one, it was common practice for a young woman to be sacrificed to the sea.’ He sat back waiting for my shocked reactions, but I’m too cagey for that. I drank quietly and stared him out. ‘It began with young virgins tied to a stake in front of the advancing tide. As the tide engulfed them so the villagers celebrated and the harvest and the bounty from the fishing were assured for the season. This didn’t always work, and someone decided th
e gods, or whatever they were trying to appease, didn’t like virgins. So it became part of the event for one of the men to deflower the girl as she was tied to the stake. Sometimes they got so engrossed in what they were doing they failed to see the tide, and they were swept away as well. What a way to go!’ He took another long pull at his drink. ‘So that the gods didn’t know what was happening it became all part of it for the girl to have her tongue cut out. The tongues were kept in a wooden chest, buried in the sand, and dug up each year for the next one. The burying of the chest was believed to keep the erosion of the tides at bay as well.’

  I snorted. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my life. You haven’t changed, you can still tell a tall story.’

  If he was affronted he hid it well. ‘My round is it?’ He stood, walked towards the bar, and then, with the perfect timing of an accomplished actor, turned, and said. ‘Dunning’s here. Ask him about the chest he dug up on the dunes.’

  I turned to see Dunning enter the bar. I knew it was Dunning because his features had not altered much since I had last seen him, but there the resemblance faltered. If I were a poetic man I would have said his spirit had been reborn, and a pang of personal loss pulled gently at me.

  ‘Peter,’ he greeted me effusively, in a manner I had never seen from him before. ‘I had no idea…’ Then he stopped and cast a reproachful look at Alan.

  ‘Pure coincidence, Robert,’ Alan began, but he didn’t sound too convincing.

  ‘I suppose you’re here,’ he said to me, a faint smile on his mouth, ‘because of the fallen woman I have taken up with.’

  I smiled, this wasn’t the Dunning I knew, but I liked him. ‘I’m here, as a friend, to make sure everything is all right with you. So far as I can see you’ve never looked better.’

  He cast a smug glance at Alan, who had retreated rather too quickly behind his beer glass. Fletcher offered Dunning a drink, which he accepted, and then we sat talking about golf, a neutral subject, which, by mutual consent, we seemed to agree on. When dinner was suggested the first hint of discord hovered.