Max Gilbert

by Simon Clark

  "You've been making deals, David."

  As the swing came back ready for Mark's next massive push, Mark asked: "What kind of deals are you making?"

  "David ..." It was his dad's voice. "Come on. Tony's cooking now."

  "Chow time." Mark lifted David off the swing, then turned to Chris. "Tony's not let his tongue run away with him, has he? He's a decent guy but he can talk the legs off a mule."

  "He was telling us how he came to live here. It seems this place has quite a hold on visitors."

  "Sure has."

  "How did you end up here, Mark?"

  "Oh, I used to work the North Atlantic merchant freighters, moved into other jobs, then ... I just sort of drifted in. Looks as though young David's worked up a thirst."

  David was greedily attacking a can of Lilt. A steady stream of green liquid ran down the front of his white tshirt.

  "Reminds me of me when I was a boy." Tony turned the burgers; puffs of flame leapt up through the grill. "Coming home from school with gravy stains down my tie. Sent the old man hairless. Everyone got salad? Right, who's for a garlic burger?"

  The talk was now purely small-talk. Tony did most of it with Mark underpinning the conversation with a few comments in his rumbling bass voice.

  Sunset came, and the sky turned dark blue; a few bats flickered overhead, gorging on insects.

  After they had eaten the mood became even more relaxed. Tony settled down into a lounger, while Mark laid more burgers on the barbecue. The smell of sizzling beef filled the garden.

  "Tempt you with a brandy, Chris?"

  "You certainly can." Chris leaned luxuriously back into his seat. David was back on the swing; this time with Ruth pushing, a glass of orange juice in her hand.

  "Thanks for the barbecue," said Chris. "It's been great."

  "My pleasure." Tony teased the cigar out of his breast pocket. "Three fresh faces is a treat for me. One day, you'll have to let me show you around the area. We're not snowed under with archaeological sites but we've got a few. You might get a few guests wanting to know where they are. Just to the south of Manshead you've got some Iron Age earthworks and a couple of standing stones. Trouble is you're sitting on the main Neolithic temple."

  Chris looked around him in a brandy haze.

  Tony chuckled. "Not here. Where you live."

  "Up on Manshead," rumbled Mark. "Before the seafort was built there was a Neolithic stone circle. Five thousand years old."

  "They probably used the standing stones in the fort's construction. You'll probably come across the odd stone lintel, or footing a different color to the rest."

  "Any time you want a look, just call in. It's a marvelous place. Marvellous."

  Tony refilled the glasses.

  "You know," Chris continued, "there's actually a cellar under the sea-fort. It's bloody impossible, really. At high tide the water is higher than the cellar."

  Tony slipped the cigar out of its cellophane sleeve. "Remember, I told you Manshead was a holy place. Do you know how holy?"

  "A Neolithic Vatican?"

  "Close-damn close. We're talking important. We're talking where the ancients got close to their gods, where they would ask favors from the big cosmic daddy of them all. But as I found out as a kid, Chris, if you want something in this world"-he rubbed his fingers together as if separating sticky banknotes-"it bloody well costs. Do you know how the ancients bankrolled their gods?"

  "Rituals? Prayers? Hymns?"

  Tony lit the cigar at last and blew a huge cloud of blue smoke over Chris's head. "Listen, have you ever made a sacrifice to supernatural powers?"

  "Have I buggery. I've been an atheist since I was nine."

  "Have you ever chucked a few pennies into a wishing well?"

  "Of course. Everyone's done that at some time, but-"

  "Ah, that, Chris, is a sacrifice. Look... A wishingwell. What do you want? A wish to come true. The price? A few coins in the water. Believe it or not, the wishingwell is a direct descendant of the art of sacrifice."

  "Everyone chucks a few pennies in a wishing-well at some time. It's just a fun thing for kids."

  "So you throw in a stone, or maybe an old lollipop stick?"

  "No, like I said, pennies."

  "Cash, then. You pay cash for the wish. We're agreed, then. You give something you value in return for something you value more."

  "Put it like that, then yes." Normally Chris would have wondered what Gateman was driving at but the brandy mellowed him. "It's only a pity the bloody wish doesn't come true. If it worked I'd be visiting a wishing-well every day."

  "Right ... You chuck a few pennies into the wishing well ... You want the wish to come true. Now, Chris, consider this; would you go into a car showroom and try and buy a new BMW with a handful of pennies?"

  " 'Course I wouldn't. You wouldn't get the keyring for that."

  "You agree you need to pay a fair price for it?"

  "Certainly."

  "Maybe you're not paying enough for the bloody wish, eh? Remember inflation. Everyone's price goes up. Even the water sprite at the bottom of the well."

  "Put like that, I suppose you're right. What's this got to do with Manshead? Was there a wishing-well there or something?"

  "Wishing-well isn't far off the mark. It's the place where deals were done between man and his gods. There they paid their price and got what they wanted in return."

  "I take it they were paying more than a few pennies, then?"

  "You're not wrong, my friend," said Tony. "Because Manshead is the place where they practiced their sacrifices."

  "Virgins on altar stones?"

  "Whatever the price demanded. A few bushels of corn or a chicken or two for a small purchase, say a safe journey or sick horse to get well again. For victory in battle or something a little more powerful from the god, then ... Well, a sacrifice of something of greater value. Why do you think the place is called Manshead?"

  "I think I know, but you're going to tell me anyway."

  "It's called Manshead because that's where the man's head was placed. Probably on wooden spikes. Think of it as a kind of supernatural stock exchange where the big deals were done."

  "Speaking of sacrifice," said Chris, "I think Mark has just made an offering to the gods."

  "Damn." One of the burgers had slipped through the metal grill and was blazing furiously. Mark grinned. "One burnt offering."

  Chris raised his glass. "And you never made a wish." There was a significant pause before the other two laughed politely.

  After the Stainforths had left, Mark and Tony stood on the pavement, talking in the cool night air.

  "The Stainforths," said Mark, "what do you think?" "They're nice people." Tony dropped the cigar butt onto the floor and ground it beneath his polished shoe.

  "But they'll have to go, of course."

  "How are we going to get rid of them?"

  "That, Mark, my old friend, is what we're going to have to discuss."

  Chapter Sixteen

  "Are we going to get the guns now?"

  "Later. We can't get across the causeway because the tide's in. Go play with your toys for a while."

  David slipped away to the caravan while Chris finished stacking timber he'd salvaged from the sea-fort.

  Ruth brought him coffee. "I've been thinking, Chris. I want to get the main gates repaired as quickly as possible."

  "What's the hurry?"

  "There's a lot of building material lying around. The last thing we want is someone walking away with it all."

  "And?"

  "And what?"

  Chris smiled. "I know you better than that. It's more than someone waltzing off with the timber and a few stone blocks."

  "I know you're going to tell me I'm silly, but ... "

  "But?"

  "But sometimes it's so quiet out here I start thinking. What if someone came here when I was alone with David?"

  "Ruth, I don't think you're silly. I'm the stupid one. I should have known you
'd feel apprehensive out here by yourself. I'll get the gates repaired by the end of the week."

  He heaved another balk of timber onto the stack. She squeezed his arm. "Call out a joiner today, Chris. I'll feel safer. Look ... It might be nothing to worry about, but I saw someone in the dunes yesterday. They just stood there watching the sea-fort."

  "What did they look like?"

  "That's the strange part about it. They always-"

  "Mu-umer. Da-adder." The urgent shout echoed around the sea-fort.

  Chris grinned. "Here we go again ... And don't worry about the gates, love. I'll get someone out to fix them this afternoon."

  "Da-adder!"

  "All right ... Dad to the rescue."

  Chris jumped up into the doorway. To stand on the goldfish-almost.

  Clark Kent flapped wetly against his ankle.

  "Okay, the jaunt's over, buster." He reached down to pick up the goldfish.

  "Have you got him?"

  It was like trying to catch a cross between a bar of soap and a grasshopper. Each flick of its tail kicked it inches into the air.

  Chris grabbed it.

  The experience wasn't pleasant.

  It was solid muscle-hard, throbbing, occasionally giving a spasmodic jerk.

  Ruth had always refused to catch the blessed thing because she said it was like trying to grab a free-floating penis. Now he knew why.

  The fish seemed determined to escape. It was far more powerful than he remembered. When it arched its body it prised his fingers apart. Chris dropped the fish back into its water cell. "And stay there. You cold-blooded monster."

  Cold-blooded.

  Chris looked at his hands.

  Now that was odd. He had always thought fish were cold-blooded. This one had felt hot to the touch. It had been like carrying, if not a hot potato, at least a very warm one. But then it may have been flapping across the caravan floor for ten minutes before David had spotted it. Chris knelt down to look at the fish, magnified by the distorting effect of water.

  "Is Clark Kent okay, Dad?"

  "Yeah, 'course he is, kidda. Just look at him swim."

  The fish swam around and around the bowl until it was a blur, its big fishy eyes staring fixedly ahead as if it were chasing something no one else could see.

  He thought there was something appropriate about a clergyman living in a stable attached to an inn. Even if the stable had been converted into comfortable living accommodation only ten paces from Out-Butterwick's Harbour Tavern.

  But Chris saw that the Reverend Horace Reed (retired, yet still wearing a white dog-collar), late fifties, didn't look a happy man. Oh, he smiled constantly. But he'd seen that smile before. Usually on the faces of politicians in a crisis.

  "The cannon?" said the Reverend Reed. "I don't see any real, er, problem. The vicarage is surplus to requirements and the diocese is looking for a buyer."

  "My wife saw the cannon first; that's her outside on the swings with my son."

  A couple of days ago, Ruth had taken a stroll around the village. First to the church, which she wanted to see inside. But sand had drifted against the door. Then she had noticed the vicarage. Outside, a dozen cannon barrels had been set upright in the ground where they served as fence-posts.

  "You'd have to agree," she'd told him, "cannon would look impressive flanking the entrance to the sea-fort."

  He'd agreed, and here he was in the Reverend's living room.

  "Er, you'll appreciate selling the cannon is not a decision I can make."

  Great thought, Chris. No doubt letters in triplicate with justifications ad nauseam to the bishop of somewhere a hundred miles away.

  "There are, I believe, twelve cannon, Mr. Stainforth. Er, how many would you wish to acquire?"

  "Three. The two long cannon for the entrance to the sea-fort; plus the short squat one; hopefully that will go inside the bar."

  "Ye-es ... Well, I will, as I, er, mentioned, have to telephone my bishop."

  "Telephone?"

  "Shouldn't take long. I don't have a telephone here so I will have to use the one in the inn. Ahm ... I don't seem to have any change for the pay phone."

  "No problem. Allow me."

  The man's smile was cold. "Why, thank you. But, er, it is long-distance, I'm afraid."

  "Will this be enough?"

  "That will be enough." For the first time a hint of warmth crept into his voice.

  Chris waited in the car park while the Reverend scuttled through the back door into the pub. On the swings,

  Ruth and David waved to him. He waved back.

  Five minutes later: "Ah, Mr. Stainforth ..."

  "Any luck?"

  "Yes. Yes indeed. I managed to catch the Bishop before he left for a meeting. Er, he has authorized me to sell on behalf of the diocese. Er... Four cannon, wasn't it?"

  "Three."

  "Ah, yes-three. Let's see, the Bishop authorized me to sell at one hundred and fifty each."

  The man's dark-ringed eyes watched Chris with anticipation.

  Do you haggle with the Church? Chris decided not.

  "We've got a deal, Reverend."

  The vicar licked his lips. "Good ... good. Now. Removal and delivery. May I suggest I arrange that for you? I'll have Hodgson, the farmer, deliver them to you. He has two muscular teenage sons."

  Chris was about to thank him for his generosity, but he went on:

  "I think we should give a little for their troubles, don't you think? An extra fifty?" The grin-cum-snarl didn't falter. "If you'll make out a check. Five hundred pounds ... please."

  Chris wrote the check. "It'll be payable to-"

  "To cash ... The parish bank account was closed some time ago. Good day."

  He watched the Reverend Reed hurry back to his stable and slam shut the door.

  Pleased, he strolled across to Ruth and David, now swaying slowly from side to side on their swings.

  "Got them, Dad?" called David.

  "Sure have."