Guardians Of The Haunted Moor

by Harper Fox

  “I’m told you’ve also made arrangements to interview the child—a shameless delinquent, as I gather—who found John Bowe. Has it ever struck you, Sergeant Frayne, that you’re not protecting these villagers of yours so much as allowing them to run rings around you?”

  Yes, it’s struck me. I know the rings, and I know where and when they’ll spiral in and run back to me. Gideon kept his mouth shut. On some deep level he no longer cared. After Tamsyn’s feed and playtime, Lee would take her to the park to wear her out. The one text a day he allowed himself to send would often be a picture of the odd little soul with her latest discovery, a snail or a worm or a lovely lump of moorland dirt. “Okay,” he said tiredly, ignoring Lee’s glance of alarm. “Like DI Lawrence would say, knock yourself out. But be gentle, Pendower, or...” He struggled to find a threat. Then a good one occurred. “Or I’ll let you interview the Prowse child yourself.”

  Chapter Five

  There’d been no need for the warning, or so it seemed at first. Granny Ragwen was having one of her rare intervals of lucidity. Madge was nowhere to be seen, and the old lady, smiling and affable, had set out on her little table three teacups, saucers and plates. It didn’t strike Pendower to wonder how she’d known to set a place for Lee, who had done his best to escape but been dragged in by his adoring new friend. “That was a fuss and a half, wasn’t it?” she said placidly, resuming her seat in her armchair. “Still, it was better than last time. Burning torches they had then.” She paused and added, just as Pendower was pouring his tea, “Back in Bavaria.”

  He looked up at her from under the brim of his cap. Gideon was suddenly irresistibly reminded of Sergeant Howie encountering his first native on Summerisle, and he pressed his lips together, glad that the tiny dimensions of the living room had forced him to perch on the window ledge behind Pendower’s shoulder. Lee, much better at keeping a straight face, only nodded from his seat by the table. “It was a fuss and a half,” he said, “and not one you should’ve had to put up with. Are you all right?”

  “Why should I be anything else, with Madge and you and the constable there to protect me? And after all, those poor boys were only lads from Carnysen farm. They had a right to be angry today.”

  “Yes, Mrs Ragwen,” Pendower said, mopping up spilled tea from his saucer. “But why were they angry with you? Did you have any dealings with John Bowe?”

  “Me? Goodness, no. I hardly saw him in my life, apart from the usual matters.”

  “Would you mind telling me what those are?”

  “Must I?” She gave Gideon a wide-eyed glance. “Am I on my oath, Constable?”

  “Not at all,” Gideon told her. “This is just a very informal interview. But we really would appreciate anything you can tell us about John.”

  “Very well.” She was kneading a piece of blue-tack between her fingers. In anyone else Gideon would have taken it for nerves, but she was neat and calm as ever, an innocuous old lady in crimplene slacks and floral blouse. “Some of the modern-day farmers are a bit ashamed, that’s all. But Farmer Bowe would come to me for cattle charms just like the rest, and to ask me for good weather for the harvest.” She leaned forward to look at the sky. “The sun should hold out nicely for them in the fields today. Right up till sunset, and then...” She gave Lee an enquiring little glance, as if he too should know. “Then there’ll be a storm.”

  “Wait,” Pendower said, taking out his notebook. “You scarcely knew John Bowe, or so you tell me in one breath. And in the next he’s coming to you for charms and weather spells, and goodness knows what other superstitious claptrap, and the other farmers do the same?”

  The blue-tack took on tiny human form. “Of course they do, officer,” she said mildly. “When did you ever hear that a Dark harvest failed?”

  “So you are, by your own confession, a witch?”

  “Oh, Constable Frayne, he is fierce, isn’t he?” As if startled, she dropped the little figure into the fireside ash. Gideon struggled not to notice that it had acquired a jaunty sergeant’s cap and a tiny but accurate face. “Worse than old Matt Hopkins, I declare. Wait a moment while I pick this up—Madge’ll want it for the posters in the children’s room. My, it is dusty in here, isn’t it?”

  Pendower sneezed violently. “Yes, it is. You were saying, Mrs Ragwen—you consider yourself a witch, with the power to heal cattle and alter the weather. What else do you think you can do?”

  She fidgeted around in her chair. One hand strayed towards the waistband of her trousers, and Gideon prayed they weren’t in for a repeat of the grocery-shop incident. “It’s funny,” she said. “Ever since I got what they call the Alzheimer’s, I think I can do all kinds of things. Then I calm down again and I remember I’m just a tired old lady with a few little tricks up her... Ah, there you are.” Triumphantly she withdrew a long white feather from the cushion at her back. “Madge is good to me, you know—always buys these with the goose-down. But sometimes the feather-ends don’t half proggle your arse.”

  “Mrs Ragwen! Sergeant Frayne is right in that these are informal proceedings—for now. But I do need your cooperation. Do you believe, and have you at any time convinced anyone else to believe, that the fields around this village require any kind of sacrifice for their harvest?”

  “A sacrifice? Gracious...” She drew the feather absently across the face of her little blue-tack man. “What an imagination you have, Sergeant! I had a friend once, you know—Doreen, they called her, from all the way over in Sussex, but no worse a woman for that. And she wrote a kind of poem, and the young ones today—the girls you’d call witches, I suppose, Sergeant—have taken it up. Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, it said, for all acts of beauty and pleasure are my worship. Well, Doreen died, and some of the young ’uns have come to believe it’s a very old chant.” Back went the feather in the opposite direction, sweeping, delicate. “Which it’s not, and Doreen never said it was, but it’s none the less true for all that. Do you take my point, Sergeant?”

  “Not at all. And I’d be very much obliged—” Pendower broke off with another enormous sneeze, followed rapidly by three more. “Good grief,” he rasped, sitting up. His eyes were streaming. “Do you have a cat in here?”

  “I wouldn’t dare keep a cat these days, would I, Sergeant—not with accusations of witchcraft going around. Allergic, are you?”

  “No. Well, yes, but normally it’s pollen, and I haven’t had an attack like this in years... Oh, excuse me. I’ll have to go and get my medications from the car.”

  He stumbled out. Lee followed, his face a little too carefully composed, and Gideon got to his feet. He paused by Granny Ragwen’s chair, folding his arms. “You’re really not doing yourself any favours, you know.”

  “I know. But isn’t it fun?”

  “Did you have anything to do with what happened to John?”

  “Of course not. All I said down in the village—and I might have been having one of my turns—was to stay off the moors after dark. I bet you’ve been telling ’em the exact same thing.”

  Gideon couldn’t deny it. He put out his hand for the little blue-tack man, and when the old lady surrendered it, rolled it into a harmless ball, hoping his motives were pure. “There. For your grandchildren’s posters. Do you think you can stay out of mischief till all this is over?”

  “Look out for the Beast, Constable.”

  Ice went down Gideon’s spine. “I’m sorry?”

  “I’ll do my best. That’s all I said. I’ll do my best, Constable.”

  Out on the pavement, Pendower was wiping his eyes. Lee was patiently holding a box of tissues. The sneezing was beginning to let up, and Pendower managed a nod in response to Gideon’s polite enquiry. “I’m a little better now. Must have been something in her carpet.”

  “Very dusty, these modern terraces,” Gideon agreed. “I hope you feel you’ve eliminated Mrs Ragwen from your enquiries.”

  Pendower eyed the net curtains, and the trim little figure moving about innocently behi
nd them. She seemed to be shaking a feather duster, and something about the action made him shudder. “Not at all. She’s a very disturbing person. But I’m prepared to leave it for now.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to be back in Truro this afternoon, Mr Tyack. If your offer to look over the scene with me still stands...”

  ***

  “You’d think,” Lee said innocently, surveying the field of trampled corn, “that your allergies would be worse up here, Sergeant, not better.”

  “Yes, they would be, if I hadn’t had my pills.”

  Gideon watched the pair of them from the discreet position he’d taken up by the stile. Technically he had no business here, and Pendower clearly wished he’d go and make himself busy with the half-dozen interviews he had scheduled for the day, but Lee had gone pale at his offer to get out of his hair. So here he would stay, quietly waiting, as long as he was needed. He knew it could take a long time.

  Pendower, not acquainted with Lee’s methods, was expecting faster action. He’d followed at Lee’s heels for his first pass down the barley rows, from one length of fluttering tape to the other. Now they were back within Gideon’s earshot again. Lee was standing with his hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed. He’d made a big effort after sending Zeke and Ma Frayne on their way, Gideon could tell—was showered and fresh in his jeans and clean white shirt. His grey waistcoat lent grace and class to the outfit, displaying his broad shoulders and neat build. Gideon could have watched him all day.

  His was a specialised point of view, though. Pendower was starting to pace. “How will you go about this, then, Mr Tyack? Will you dowse the land, try to get a read on any electromagnetic currents?”

  “No. Probably I’ll just stand here for a while. Why don’t you go and talk to Gid?”

  “Well, I’d like to watch your methods, if...”

  “Seriously.” Lee’s voice edged out of its normal good-natured timbre. “Could be a while. Might be best if you let my, er... aura expand.”

  “Oh, is that how you begin? Do you believe you have an aura, a personal energy field you can expand or contract at—”

  “Pendower?” Gideon called. “Come over here for a second. I forgot to tell you something about Granny Ragwen.”

  God, the man was like a baby bird, running from one parent to the other in the hope of a beakful of worms. Gideon wondered what had made so dry and level-headed a copper turn to the weird shit as his speciality. Was he seeking proof, or a chance at demolition? “You’re interested in the origins of words, right?”

  “Yes, very. I wrote a paper on etymology as part of my degree thesis. Place names, surnames... They’re often a clue to local myth and legend when all other evidence has gone.”

  “In that case I’ve got a good one for you. Do you speak Kernowek?”

  “Only a few words. A shame, since it’s part of my heritage, but I never had time.”

  “Me neither. Lee’s taught me a bit, though.”

  “Oh, right. I heard him on Spirits of Cornwall, reading part of one of the old mystery plays. He really is talented, isn’t he?”

  “You have no idea.” Gideon let it sound as suggestive as Pendower’s ears chose to hear. He realised he was enjoying making the poor man blush, and stopped himself: that kind of distraction from personal grief was both short-lived and unfair. “His family taught him as a second language. They’re staunch Celtic Revivalists.”

  “Ah. Marvellous. But what did you want to tell me about Mrs Ragwen?”

  “Her surname means white witch. It’s pretty much a direct translation.”

  Pendower came to hungry attention. He whipped out his policeman’s notebook. “I don’t think I quite see it. No, wait—ra, as in W-R-A...”

  “And gwen for white. Yes. So I don’t have to pretend to fall in with her beliefs, as you put it. My beliefs or yours are irrelevant to her. Her bloodline’s older than the hills around here.”

  Pendower was scribbling frantically. He looked up, eyes shining. “That really is marvellous.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Annoyance surged in Gideon’s chest despite his best intentions. He’d meant to inspire this little collector with a bit of respect for the Dark village elders, but had only handed him another juicy fact for his archive. “So best tread lightly around her,” he added, gathering all his best gravity of demeanour, “or she might just turn you into a toad.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Frayne! This is a murder inquiry. And even if my involvement is only peripheral—”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “I’m having serious doubts over your impartiality. I reviewed the Lorna Kemp case notes before I came out here. Joe Kemp’s body never was found, was it?”

  “No. Why—”

  “And there’s only your testimony, Mr Tyack’s and that of a traumatised child for the circumstances of his disappearance. The people around here look up to you, don’t they? You wouldn’t be the first village copper to take matters into his own hands with a child molester on the loose.”

  “Joe wasn’t a molester. He kidnapped Lorna to punish Sarah for rejecting him.”

  “Well, whatever his crime, the Beast didn’t like it. That’s the gist of your report, although you’ve done your best to sound rational. Kemp got away from you, and vanished after what you ultimately describe as a wild-animal attack.”

  “That was the only conclusion I could draw.” Gideon was drawing another one now. He could hardly believe it. “Hang on. Are you saying I made away with Joe myself, and blamed his death on a local legend?”

  “Why not? The framework was in place. People around here talk about this Beast as a reality. I might have done the same myself, in your position.”

  “Did you say you wanted to watch Lee work?” Gideon asked distantly. He was wondering if he could punch Pendower in the face, sling him over the hedge and blame that on the Beast too. “Because I think he’s found something.”

  Pendower whipped round. His face lit up strangely. “This should be interesting. Is he on a scent?”

  “He’s not a bloodhound, Sergeant.”

  Lee had set off between two rows of corn. Gideon saw his target straight away—a thread of blue wool, snagged on a barley ear and dancing in the wind. The forensics team must have missed it. Lee was too experienced a police consultant to need Pendower’s shout of warning: Gideon hushed him with a gesture, following him to the edge of the crop. Lee would check it over without touching, and then either leave it in situ or, if it was likely to blow away, ask Gideon for gloves and a bag.

  He leaned close to the strand, closing his eyes, inhaling the air around it. Then, to Gideon’s astonishment, he snapped it off the stalk in one impatient gesture and strode back along the furrow. “Sorry, Gid. This isn’t relevant to your investigation.”

  “Bloody hell. It had better not be. Do you know who it belongs to?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Gideon thought he knew too. The wool was a particular shade of blue. With a sinking in his gut, he stepped back to let the pantomime play out. Lee wrapped the wool around one forefinger and extended it to Pendower. “You’d better have this back, or your jumper might unravel.”

  Pendower wasn’t wearing a jumper. Like Gideon, he was in his warm-weather uniform of short-sleeved shirt and utility vest. In the cool of the morning, though, arriving with DI Lawrence and her team... “Goodness,” he said shakily, attempting to retain his fascinated mask. “Can you really tell that just from being near an object? Touching it?”

  “No, you idiot. From smelling. I like your cologne, but if you don’t mind my saying so, you overdo it just a touch.”

  Pendower undid the wool. He was blushing to the eyeballs, and Gideon didn’t think he needed say anything to add to his humiliation. He was puzzled, though. “Did Lawrence give you permission to leave that?”

  “Not permission, exactly. She told me I could if I wanted.”

  “To test Lee, right? What did Lawrence say to that idea?”

  There was an honesty in Pendowe
r underneath his tricks and bullshit. Caught out squarely, he looked up in wry acknowledgement. “She said, good luck with that. Believe it or not, Mr Tyack, I’m actually really sorry.”

  Lee pushed his hands into his pockets. “I believe you, Rufus. It’s not the first time. One client planted a pair of her boyfriend’s Y-fronts in an underwear drawer when I was supposed to be helping find her missing husband. But her husband wasn’t missing, just off on a bender with his mates in Camborne, and there was a bit of a furore after that.” He smiled faintly, turning to look out across the field of silkily dancing corn. “The thing is, I’m not asking you to believe in anything. Your faith doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. All you have to do is judge by my results, and if I’m not getting any, I’ll tell you right away. Speaking of which, Gid—I’m really sorry. I’m drawing a total blank here. Maybe that’s because it’s getting dark.”

  Gideon took his hand to steady him back out onto the field’s edge. The sun was just rising to noon above Minions Hill, the day gathering its full brilliance. “All right, love,” he said calmly. “Got one coming on, then?”

  “What? No, I’m fine. Did you ever wonder...” Lee swayed, and took hold of Gideon like a scaffold, an oak tree in a storm. “Did you ever wonder why it was called Dark? The village, I mean?”

  “Sometimes, yes.” Gideon gave Pendower a look that backed him up five paces. “Come here. You’re okay.”

  “Seems stupid. It’s so full of light most of the time. Sunshine and leaves, and you’re part of it. You’re the same as the moor, massive and lovely and laid out in the sun. Sometimes I have nightmares that I left Sarah Kemp’s house five minutes earlier on that day when she called me in about Lorna, and I never met you.”

  “Didn’t happen.” Opening his arms, Gideon let him huddle close. “Met you, married you. Everything’s all right.”