Stark felt somewhat better when in the sunshine smelling the tang of the nearby sea. He paused as he unlocked his car door and looked around. No doubt some little old ladies of Brighton were now regarding him through chintz curtains, wondering what a stranger was up to their neighbourhood, but he was accustomed to that sort of catty surveillance. What tickled the hairs on the back of his neck was a vague awareness of some other watcher. But he saw nothing supporting such a suspicion
He climbed into the car, started the engine and cursed himself. Magicians, hell holes, dark rituals, hanging men and a dead family steeped in sin and perversion. Despite his pledge to keep grounded in the real world, he was letting it get under his skin. After spending nearly an hour listening to a long-dead boy share his life of fear and delusion, no wonder he was imagining watchers in the shadows.
He headed back to the centre of town. First, the keys back to Lawrence and a receipt for the book, a mere formality, then back on the road, bound for the dark heart of Hammershire County.
A green Renault exited the alley by the house and followed.
Once Brighton was behind him, he concentrated on the rushing traffic. He let himself be absorbed into the mundane act of driving, let his automatic actions push away any concerns about the case. He often found a haven from stress in doing ordinary things.
He glanced into the rear-view mirror and frowned. The glass of the back window had a thin layer of dust. He had thought nothing of it. Not his problem. But now something was written in the dust. Some yobs, he thought, trying to be funny by chiding the car’s owner to ‘wash me’ or some such silliness.
He turned the image in the mirror around in his mind, but it still made no sense. The lines formed no words he could read, and yet they seemed communicative, not merely artistic. And there was a familiarity to them. Somewhere, he knew, he had seen them before, but where? He tried to remember.
From the moment he met Ravyn, Stark had been motivated to improve poor memory skills, to become less dependent upon pen and paper. That first day! Ever a hairsbreadth from demanding a reassignment because of Ravyn’s intransigence and abuse. But he, realized such a request might be what the powers-that-be wanted, perhaps the reason for his assignment to a pompous little martinet like Ravyn. When the Met sent him down, the deal was to place him in CID and tidy up his official file. No doubt they thought landing him in a godforsaken county like Hammershire would be just the thing to permanently put him out of their misery; if not, then surely Ravyn’s peculiar and demanding ways would. A request for reassignment could construed as a refusal on his part. There might not be another opening in CID. He might be demoted to a position in uniform. Or, he thought, he might be shown the door.
Ride it out, he had told himself. Let the dust settle before you do something stupid, again. Meanwhile, suss out station politics, see who’s watching whom, who’s got the knives out and who’s got them hidden. Keep a weather eye on Aeronwy. And, above all, figure out if DCI Ravyn is being used against you, or you against him.
He smiled thinly, recalling his second day on the job, suffering Ravyn’s suggestions and criticisms. Eventually, he started paying heed when he realized Ravyn actually cared about his retention in the Hammershire CID. He heard others speak about Ravyn’s former partners, those who quit and those who went on to better things. He was determined to be amongst the latter. Ravyn seemed oblivious as to how Stark had come amongst them, and Stark was happy to leave him ignorant, at least for the time being.
While evaluating Ravyn’s role in his future, he noticed, among other things, people were careful what they said within the chief inspector’s hearing. At first, he wondered if Ravyn were a grass, informing on others to the powers above for his own benefit. Later, he understood they did not fear being overheard as much as they feared their words being recalled.
He learned quickly Ravyn could easily spot inconsistencies in a suspect’s story, and toss back his own ill-considered words uttered only in passing. He suspected an eidetic memory, then learned the truth. Ravyn recalled everything. At the time, Stark thought Ravyn was merely showing off a skill to the new boy, taunting him much as an athlete might an out-of-shape office worker.
Watching and listening, keeping his own mouth shut, subduing his snarky nature, Stark eventually understood Ravyn had bestowed upon him a rare confidence. Finding himself, for the first time in his life, endowed with true trust by a colleague, Stark felt moved in ways he could not comprehend. When that trust was put to the test, Stark surprised himself by proving worthy of it.
At first, he was envious of Ravyn. The chief inspector seemed to enjoy a clarity of mind for which Stark could only yearn. During complex cases he often wished nature had also blessed him with such a faculty. Later, he counted himself lucky – Ravyn was cursed, he decided, not blessed. Not at all.
Setting aside some pride and most bitterness, he admitted his recall needed improvement. He followed Ravyn’s suggestions. He would never be like Ravyn (Thank God for that, he thought), but now reported most conversations verbatim and often caught villains in subtle lies. As months passed, he received more nods of approval and fewer headshakes from Ravyn. Stark, who had never before measured himself by the opinions of others, did not understand why Ravyn’s appreciation should matter, but it did.
He looked again at the tracing in the dust of the rear window, letting his mind drift as he concentrated on driving. Familiar, but how? When had he seen something like this? The image of a skull glowing in darkness flashed back to him.
He swerved to avoid hitting an articulated lorry that appeared out of nowhere. He cursed the unseen driver.
The swirls in dust reminded him of the lines incised into the rock wall above Dale Stryker’s bones. Similar, but was it the same? What was it the guv’nor had called it? He remembered a story about Druids or pagans and a lunatic in an asylum, but could not bring to mind what the writing was called.
He exited onto an ill-used secondary road. His mobile chimed with the receipt of a text. Protocol required him to stop before using the device, but he was late enough already. He thumbed it open, and looked down, thus missed seeing a green Renault follow him onto the lonely road. Had he seen it, however, he still might not have given it a thought, having missed seeing it near the Marquest home or during his drive across Brighton to Lawrence’s shop.
He closed the mobile and slipped it into his coat pocket with the journal. Ravyn wanted him in Knight’s Crossing. That was just as well, he decided. It would delay his return home, though not by much and if he gave the book directly to Ravyn, be need not stop at the station and could return to Aeronwy that much sooner. And it would eliminate any chance of him running into Heln. That alone was worth any delay.
And he could show the back window to Ravyn, let him strain his brain over it, not that it would be a strain. If it was Mhoggam, he would know instantly. Mhoggam! Stark grinned like an ape at his sudden recall.
Information once seen or heard was never lost. Stark could not count the number of times Ravyn had harped on the persistence of memory while sharing methods for coaxing information out of his brain cells, the same little grey cells Stark often felt melting when trying to keep up with Ravyn.
Mhoggam. Yes, he felt quite pleased with himself.
Thought paths, Ravyn called them. Misplaced memories lay by them, awaiting recovery. Stark was irked by such nutter suggestions, even more so when one worked out.
Mental irritant salved, Stark considered Dale’s journal, the weird world it revealed. It must have been a hellish life, cut off from the world, surrounded by lunatics. Despite the experiences of saintly aesthetics, isolation was not a good thing. Take away the strictures of society, he thought, and everything turned Lord of the Flies.
He recalled a visit from Dad’s brother, a hellfire and damnation missionary. Uncle Robert had terrified little Leo during his brief sojourn in London, between one outpost of savagery and another, but Stark clung to every word uttered about head hunters, cannibals, a
nd witch doctors defeated by the power of Cross.
“Wickedness breeds in isolation, boy,” the missionary cried. “As much true of a tribe as a single man. The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil. Madness festers amongst men isolated from the light. All those Pacific isles were fair to look upon, but I found the islanders sunk into vile of perversities, unnatural sex and consuming human flesh. Had I not brought light into the darkness, all would have perished except for the last hungry heathen left standing.”
Uncle Robert was both a hoot and something of a Munchausen, judging from Dad’s eye rolls, but he knew his cheese, Stark thought. In London’s East End, he encountered families living in isolation. In the vastness of the sea, in the heart of the capital of the world, or in a lonely farmhouse, what they all had in common was a shared solitude. Isolation bred perversity, and nothing seeped in from the outside world to either temper it or to expose the depravity of what the group called normal.
The innocence of youth was no match for the shared madness of a family. Dale fervently believed Grandfather Ezekiel capable of calling forth demonic entities, that the rites and rituals of his family really put them in touch with the dark and blood-thirsty gods who preceded the coming of man. It was all dangerous nonsense.
There was something going on at Stryker Farm that even young Dale did not understand, something he could only hint at in a way both naive and jaded. What was the hold Grandfather Ezekiel had on them all? What was his mother doing in secret? And what about the ‘Acolytes’ with the odd names? Where they men or merely…
The world blurred.
Stark struggled with the wheel.
He heard a hollow booming.
Pain assailed him, a rusty spike hammered between his eyes.
All thoughts and memories vanished as he fought to follow the road twisting beneath him. In the rear-view mirror he thought he saw flames leap from the dust-scrawled symbols. He tried to pull to the side of the road, but the verge was a moving target.
He shot off the road. Trees danced out of his way. As he veered back onto the roadway, he knew he was moving, but it seemed as if the trees and the roadway, everything in the world, were moving around his motionless centre. Then something hit him.
In the wing mirror he saw a looming green car.
Thoughts scattered as he felt another solid blow. Trees circled him and the road spiralled into infinity. He stared into blackness. Though confused and dazed, he realized the car had come to a stop, the engine had cut out and he was canted to one side, staring at the passenger floorboards. He tried to move, but could not.
He heard the driver door open. Painfully, he shifted his head. A gloved hand wiped the steering wheel with a dirty rag.
He felt himself pulled up, hands slipping over his suit, poking into his pockets. No! he thought. No bloody way!
Fighting pain, vertigo and the strange immobility afflicting him, he grabbed the searcher’s wrist as fingers closed over the journal. A gloved fist struck him fully in the jaw, but he refused to let go.
Leo Stark was not muscular, but he was wiry and strong, and many villains ended up in hospital by misjudging him. More than that, he was tenacious. He had often defeated his parents by simply standing his ground. He would ignore their shouts, take their abuse, and endure the obligatory thrashing. Always bruising, sometimes bloody, never easy, but ever worth the final victory. If only, his father often told his mother, she had birthed a mule instead of this stiff-necked, hard-headed and intractable son.
A hungry crocodile could not have held the attacker’s wrist with greater obduracy. The push-and-pull to gain possession of the journal yanked Stark up. His seatbelt kept him from being pulled out of the car and onto the ground, but it also restricted his actions, putting him at a disadvantage.
Stark pushed the release tab. The sudden lack of tension threw the attacker off balance, but he held the journal and continued to pummel Stark. Now half in, half out of the car, Stark pulled back his legs, then thrust them out hard as he could. The attacker let go of the journal as he went flying. Stark’s grasp failed.
Movement and strength were waxing, pain and vertigo waning, but Stark knew another assault would finish him. He flung himself back in the car, slamming and locking the door. He hit the horn and held it down, filling the still air with a strident call for help.
It was unlikely, anyone hearing, as was a motorist happening by, especially one willing to intervene in something obviously none of his business, but Stark banked on a villain’s innate cowardice, the fear of discovery and capture that dogged even the hardest of them.
A fist slammed the window. Stark beat a staccato cry with the horn, hoping to induce panic. If a stone came into play, he was done for. He heard the slam of a car door, an engine’s roar and the banshee squeal of rubber. Stark turned, but the car was out of sight.
He sighed in the silence and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. An elbow came into contact with the horn. He started at the sudden blare. His vision swam at the sudden movement.
“Bugger,” he muttered.
Now alone, he unlocked the door, stepping out cautiously. He leaned against the car, recovering. He looked at the damaged car, then at the back window. It had been wiped clean.
“Bugger all.”
The ground where the other car had been was too hard to take a print. Green car. brown glove, and no other memories. He thought of his next encounter with Ravyn.
“Bugger all to hell and back!”
At least he still had the journal.
* * *
Ravyn sniffed the steering wheel, smelling the expected vinyl and grime, perspiration and cleaner. But there was also an acrid scent, like the sap inside weeds when broken. He pulled a small collecting bag from his pocket, removed the sterile pad within, and wiped the wheel. He returned the cloth to the bag and sealed it.
“Probably not enough remaining, but we might get lucky.”
Stark smelled his fingers. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“You saw the attacker wipe the steering wheel.”
Stark nodded. “Must have been while I was with Lawrence at the last.” Being gone a few minutes hardly justified locking up the car. “Must have jimmied the lock somehow. What was it?”
“A magical salve or oil,” Ravyn said. “Applied thinly enough to not be felt on the skin, through which it was absorbed.”
Stark opened his mouth, but words failed him.
“Or we might conjecture it could be any number of plant-based alkaloids known to cause paralysis, vertigo and hallucinations.”
“Drugged? Just by touch?”
“Such substances have always been used in magical ceremonies to induce euphoria or reach altered states of mind.”
“I imagine calling it a plant-based alkaloid would have sucked all the mystery out of it.”
Ravyn looked at the back window. “Can’t recall the symbol?”
Stark shook his head.
“The car?” Ravyn prompted. “Number plate? Manufacturer?”
“It was green.” Stark thought a moment. “Probably.”
“And your attacker wore brown gloves.”
“I was not at my best, sir,” Stark said. “Understandably.”
“You can drive back to Stafford?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“Probably fine enough,” Ravyn said. “Take the sample and car to Forensics, then have Dr Penworthy draw blood for analysis.”
Stark grimaced. He had hoped to avoid the station altogether.
“What do you make of the journal, sir?”
“Grimoire.”
“Sir?
“It’s called a grimoire, derived from grammaire, French for ‘grammar,’ a collection of magical spells and invocations, popular amongst medieval practitioners of the dark arts” Ravyn said. “You might think of it as a magician’s personal handbook.”
“Written by a boy not yet fifteen?” Stark shook his head. “Had to be a bit mad, don’t you think?”
“No, not mad at all, Stark.”
“Well, certainly not a normal life, was it?”
“Nothing about that family was normal, but Dale loved them as much as he feared them. That’s clear from the entries.”
The moment he met Ravyn, he gave him the journal (Grimoire, said a part of his mind in a voice oddly like Ravyn’s). The guv’nor spent no more than five minutes flipping through, but if it were to be destroyed, Ravyn would still possess it, forever. A curse indeed, Stark thought.
“Something he’s not saying though,” Stark said. “He dances all around it, but never states it clearly.”
Ravyn nodded. “I’m staying at the Broken Lance tonight.”
“What about Heln, sir?”
“Tomorrow,” Ravyn said. “If there’s time.”
Yeah, Stark thought. If either of us still have jobs tomorrow.
Chapter 10
Touched by Shadows
Peter Vogt could hardly claim he had no rooms to let, and dared not deny Ravyn’s occupancy after the room had been paid for, but the expression in his obsidian eyes belied a toothy grin and a gregarious attitude of bonhomie. He was obviously not happy about sheltering a policeman beneath his roof. Earlier in the day, when Ravyn had lunched at the old pub, Vogt was nowhere around, probably over in Denby Marsh, said Peg, the young girl who gave him a room.
Evening had set in, but the pub was still sparsely populated. In homes and cottages, supper was being eaten, and those who worked outside the village were still motoring in from ‘foreign parts.’ Aside from Ravyn, seated at a dim corner table, Vogt standing before him, and Peg behind the bar, the only others were Lebbie Rodgers and two of his mates in an opposite corner, sullenly sucking dark pints and casting darker looks toward the stranger in their midst.
“Sorry to have missed you this afternoon, Chief Inspector, but I had to be away,” Vogt said. “Had some errands to run, people to see over in Denby Marsh.”
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