‘Anything else?’ I hated myself for asking.
She shook her head. ‘No, but it was all very cloak and dagger.’
I rinsed my mug and left Cassie in the back kitchen. I didn’t like her. I didn’t like her habit of sneaking around, and I was sure the teenagers were up to nothing more sinister than a gruesome bit of thrill-seeking at their dead friend’s expense. Even so, when I got to my room, I looked out of the window. The children were some distance away, heading not into town but towards open countryside. They seemed to be making for the Hill.
There’d been six of them in the garden. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could only see five now. They were too far away, though, for me to make out who might have left the group.
I remembered the lights I’d seen the night I found Patsy. It couldn’t have been the kids: they’d all be in bed. So why were they heading up there now?
The Well Head Road, single-track in most places, ran round Pendle Hill, taking in Sabden on the south, Barley to the east, moving north to run through Downton and then Pendleton on the west. Halfway between Sabden and Barley, a public footpath called Lych Way led up towards one of the steepest but shortest elevations. If the children were heading up the Hill, that was the most likely way they’d gone. It would also, I was reasonably confident, take them past the place where I’d seen lights.
By the time I got to Lych Way, there was no sign of them. I’d walked quickly, but it had taken time to find my boots and a sweater, and they were all young and naturally fit. I followed the sycamore-lined track past pigs and chickens, and a noisy, but restrained, collie dog. After half a mile or so, the path forked at a point where a great, flat stone seemed to be embedded in the earth. Lych Way went on, no longer a track accessible by vehicles, across a field and through a gap in the next stone wall.
Lych Way was ringing a bell. I had a feeling I’d read some reference to it, but it was eluding me.
I couldn’t see the children but was pretty certain they were still ahead of me. I turned the other way and started to climb. The way up was easy to follow, much of it lined with stones, but very steep. It was a bit like scaling an endless flight of stairs.
The grass around me was yellow after the recent heatwave, and some of it had scorched where hill fires had broken out. I passed bilberry bushes and heather of several shades coming into bloom. Sheep were everywhere.
When I judged I was about halfway up, the path turned and I stopped to get my breath. From this vantage point, I could see Lych Way again, a darker track of grass following the stone wall of field after field, perfectly straight, leading through stiles, and even over a slender stream. After half a mile or so, it led into a copse of trees through which I thought I could see a vague outline of a building.
Lych Way? Lych Way? No, it wouldn’t come.
I set off again, and when I rounded the bend, the track widened into a flat area. A space had either been cut into the Hill or formed from a natural plateau. Stone slabs were visible beneath the grass and bracken. Walls, built from great pieces of blackened stone, disappeared into the bushes. A narrow stream ran close, pooling into a small pond, and then a waterfall, tipping over the escarpment.
People had lived here. On a hill too exposed to suffer any real trees to thrive, there were three good-sized beeches, growing in the shelter of the small cliff. There was even a rose bush, wild but offering the echo of a garden.
In the centre of the space, a large, blackened ring of earth was filled with ash and charred fragments of wood. I’d got the place right, at least, but the children were nowhere to be seen. My foot slid sideways and when I looked down, I saw the stub of a wax candle.
Who brings candles on a hike?
And who had lit a fire, halfway up a moor?
Suddenly, acutely conscious that I was entirely alone and a long way from town, I walked to the edge of the plateau. Still no sign of the children. The ground fell away steeply. This was not a place to lose your footing. I stared down, and it must have been the fact that I hadn’t eaten that day that was making me feel dizzy and afraid.
35
Larry was in the garden when I got back, lounging against the wall of his workshop. His hair had been swept up off his forehead with Brylcreem, and his shirt was open several buttons at the neck. As I crossed the grass, he watched me with his eyes half closed.
I was about to give him a tight-lipped smile and walk past when I thought of something. ‘Larry, you must spend a lot of your time in graveyards. I mean, some of it at least, in churchyards and cemeteries.’
He blew a smoke ring. ‘Some of my favourite places. Lots of quiet corners, not much chance of being disturbed.’
I knew I had to tread carefully. I had not been ordered to interview Larry. ‘So hypothetically, if there were reports of graves being disturbed from time to time, you’d hear about it?’
‘Nowt hypothetical about it, Flossie. It happens.’
I took a step closer. He removed his cigarette.
‘I’ve looked through files at the station. I can’t find any reports of it.’
‘Well, you won’t.’
‘Why not?’
He put his cigarette back in his mouth. ‘You interrogating me, Flossie? What if I don’t cooperate?’
‘Father Edward told me there are important people who don’t like anyone rocking the boat. He’s scared of them.’
Larry didn’t reply.
‘Are you scared of them?’
His lip curled. ‘Know anything about the masons, Flossie?’
I shook my head. ‘Stonemasons?’
‘Freemasons. And that’s all I have to say on the subject. Look ‘em up.’
Freemasons. Tom had mentioned the Freemasons, that Rushton wouldn’t join, and that it had made him some powerful enemies.
‘Thank you.’ I turned away again.
‘Fancy a drink tonight?’
I stopped walking. It was a mistake, because suddenly he was right behind me. ‘We could have a drive out.’ He spoke softly in my ear. ‘Barley Mow’s not too busy on a Saturday.’
‘I’m working.’ I could feel him watching me as I walked to the back door of the house. By this time, my blood sugar had plummeted and I was actually a bit shaky as I climbed the stairs back to my room.
I opened the door. For a second I stared, not quite taking it in.
A dog, the same black whippet I’d seen in the shed, was lying on my bed.
In the daylight, immediately below a window, I could see it properly. It looked like an old dog, skinny in the flanks, a little grey around the muzzle. The rims of its black eyes were red, as though it were suffering some minor infection.
‘Cassie!’ I had little doubt she was behind her bedroom door, listening for my reaction. ‘Cassie, get out here now.’
No sound of movement. No doors opened.
‘Cassie, get this dog out of my room!’
The dog growled, unnerved by the noise I was making. Without taking its eyes off me, it got to its feet, its ears pinned back, its teeth visible.
‘Shoo! Go on, git!’ I stood to one side in the doorway so that it had a clear exit. ‘Cassie! Sally!’
Nothing. I might be alone in the house but for this black creature.
Are you sure it was a real dog, not a grim?
‘Go on, get out of here.’
I wasn’t going to touch it. From what I knew of whippets, they were gentle dogs, but this one looked mean. I could see old scars around its head, even the trace of blood below its mouth.
‘Yah! Go on.’
Finally, it relaxed and stretched out. Without another glance at me, it leaped from the bed and trotted out of the room. I went to follow it, to make sure it left the house, but it could move quickly and had already reached the bottom of the stairs. When I got to the ground floor, there was no sign of it.
The unusual silence in the Glassbrook house was starting to feel weird. I reached Larry’s workshop and banged on the door.
‘Larry! You need
to come out now.’
He appeared a few seconds later. ‘What the fuck?’ he said to me. I hadn’t heard him swear before.
‘There was a dog in my bedroom.’
‘A what?’
‘Cassie is keeping one, probably a stray, probably without your knowledge. I found it in the shed a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been on my bed.’
‘Show me.’ He pushed past and set off back towards the house.
‘Well, it’s not there now. It ran out.’
He ignored that, striding ahead, into the house. When we were halfway up the stairs, Cassie appeared from her room.
She yawned and stretched her arms to the ceiling. ‘What’s going on?’ she slurred.
‘Florence says there’s a dog in her bedroom,’ said Larry. He reached the top of the stairs and stood on the threshold of my room. ‘Where is it?’
‘It ran out – I told you. It was there, lying on the bed, when I got in just now.’
Larry stepped closer to the bed. ‘No sign of a dog that I can see,’ he said. ‘No dog hairs. No mud.’ He looked over my shoulder. ‘Know anything about a dog, Cass?’
‘We haven’t got a dog, Daddy,’ she replied, opening her grey eyes wider.
‘Happy?’ Larry said to me.
‘No, anything but. I’m not having your children coming into my room and playing stupid practical jokes. This might be your house, but I have a right to privacy and security.’ I put my hand on the lock of the door. ‘I want a key for this door, today.’
‘This is our home. We don’t lock our doors.’ I turned to see that Sally had crept up the stairs while we’d been arguing. I’d always liked Sally. She’d been nice to me, but she stood now on the top step and I could see that she and Cassie were very alike. The same oval faces and pale grey eyes.
‘You heard what my wife said.’ Larry leaned against the door frame. ‘If you don’t like it here, you can find somewhere else.’
Sally didn’t demur. When I glanced at Cassie, she had the same sly smile I often saw on Luna’s face.
They want me out of here, I realised. They’ve done this deliberately.
It was a ridiculous thought. The dog had been a mean teenage prank, nothing more, and it was stupid to think Sally and Larry had been complicit, but standing there, faced with their hostile stares, it didn’t feel ridiculous.
‘I’ll leave next Saturday,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to refund my rent. In which case, I’ll go now.’ Even as I was speaking, I was thinking, What am I doing? How can I find another room in even a week?
‘Suit yourself,’ said Larry. ‘You’re a stuck-up cow anyway.’
They all walked away. They hadn’t offered to refund my rent. I had a week.
36
Larry Glassbrook was hardly my favourite person by this time, but I remembered what he’d said, and after an hour rummaging around in the filing room, I found an old file on the Freemasons of Lancashire. I had only the vaguest idea what the Freemasons were all about. ‘Misogynist tomfoolery,’ my grandmother had said about them once. ‘They do a lot for charity,’ Dad had replied. Some sort of nationwide network of an all-male club was the best I could do.
The file didn’t help much. Some reports of vandalism and a break-in at the lodge in the western part of town, a newspaper cutting of the superintendent at the time, years before Rushton, attending a black-tie dinner where some of the men wore white gloves, and wide, ceremonial sashes.
There was a map too, showing the location of all the masonic lodges in East Lancashire. I was surprised at their sheer number, and more so at their distribution. The northern area, which encompassed the Pendle Forest, the Hill and the towns of Burnley and Blackburn, contained twelve lodges. The southern and eastern areas, both as big geographically, contained five and four respectively.
Whoever the Freemasons were, there were a lot of them in this part of Lancashire.
When I got back to the CID room, I found Sharples at my desk, staring down at my chart of the missing children. Brown was the only other person in the room.
‘I need to add a few things to it,’ I said. ‘I was working on the duplicate at home last night.’
Sharples nodded absently as Brown wandered over.
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘three different people have told me, or strongly hinted, that graveyards in town get interfered with, but complaints are never investigated because—’ I stopped.
‘Because what?’ Sharples prompted.
‘Because there are important people who know that weird stuff happens and who turn a blind eye. Maybe they’re the ones who are doing it. And then Larry – yes, I know he’s a person of interest, but even so – Larry told me I should look at the Freemasons.’
Sharples and Brown exchanged a look.
‘And I did. At least, I tried to. There isn’t anything. Except there does seem to be a lot of them round here.’
Both men looked at me without speaking.
They’re Freemasons, I thought. These two are Freemasons.
Brown stuck out his hand and I flinched, but he was only holding out a pound note. ‘Get a receipt,’ he said.
‘Daphne Reece meets her friends in the Turkish baths most Saturday afternoons,’ Sharples told me. ‘Get yourself down there. See what you can find out.’
‘You want me to interview Daphne Reece in the Turkish baths?’ My mind was still reeling from what I’d just learned – guessed – about these two. Was I being ridiculous?
‘No, not interview, Lovelady,’ Sharples said. ‘Don’t be simple. Just have a chat. You know, all girls together. I’m not convinced she’s told us everything, and I don’t like that smart-arse of a solicitor of hers either. You might have more success. She took a shine to you.’
‘Turkish baths?’
‘Nothing to it,’ Brown said. ‘You sit around butt-naked and get hot. I go most Wednesday nights. Saturday is ladies’ day.’
‘You want me to find out if these friends she meets are members of the mysterious coven?’
‘It’s really not like you to be slow, Lovelady,’ Sharples said. ‘If you’re not up to it, forget it. There’s some vomit needs cleaning up in cell three.’
Sabden Public Baths was a large building, with wide stone steps and Roman columns, on the western edge of the town centre. Armed with a ticket, I made for the sign reading, Turkish Baths, Sauna, Steam Room. I went a bit nervously, I’d never been in this part of the building before. The door at the corridor’s end opened into a large room smelling of female cosmetics and filled with lounge beds.
Only three of the beds were occupied, and I didn’t recognise any of the women. One of them was painting her toenails a vivid red; another was winding curlers into her hair; a third was dozing. Just women, or witches?
I’d become a witch-hunter. Had it not been for the events of the morning, I might have laughed.
The sauna was empty, as was the shower room. The scented air of the steam room hit me as I went in, clutching a towel that felt far too small. I could see practically nothing. Even a hand in front of my face would have been blurry, a suggestion of a form in the hot mist. I sank onto the nearest bench.
‘And relax,’ said a voice from the steam, a deep, melodic voice. ‘Breathe in, breathe out.’
There came a sliding noise, an annoyed gasp, then, ‘What?’ the voice said. ‘The woman’s obviously stressed. I’m trying to help.’
‘I don’t know why you imagine everyone wants your help,’ said another voice. Daphne’s. I’d found her.
‘Are you talking to me?’ I could barely make out two figures on the bench opposite, about three feet away. I had a sense, though, that there were more than three of us in the steam room.
‘Shove some more of the menthol on, will you, Em,’ Daphne said.
There was movement on the highest bench, a hissing sound; then the air was full of sharp, piercing menthol, which stung the inside of my nose and forced my eyes shut. I tried to breathe deeply, to relax into the heat, and within seco
nds an odd lethargy was stealing over me. I leaned back against the warm, damp wall and felt my eyes closing.
‘Yes, I was talking to you,’ the first voice resumed. It had no hint of an accent, North, South or in between, that I could detect. ‘Your distress was quite apparent when you came in.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, my eyes still shut. ‘Difficult day.’
‘Not a problem at work, I hope,’ said Daphne. ‘We need the men and women in blue to be at their best in these troubled times.’
I wondered whether it might be possible to lie down. I didn’t think so. I still had the feeling there were several women in the room, some of whom I hadn’t yet heard from. I opened my eyes and tried to peer through the steam, but it had thickened, if anything. ‘Work is fine,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ I considered briefly pretending I didn’t know who she was, but thought she might see through it. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Reece,’ I said. ‘How did you know it was me?’
‘I caught a glimpse of your hair as you came in,’ said Daphne. ‘And your voice is quite distinctive, as I’ve just discovered mine is.’
‘I’ve been telling you that for ten years,’ said the first voice.
‘This is Avril Cunningham,’ said Daphne. ‘Darling, this is the charming WPC Lovelady that I was telling you about.’
Avril Cunningham was Daphne’s solicitor. We hadn’t met. I’d just watched her from behind the mirror.
‘Florence,’ I corrected her.
‘Absolutely. Formalities seem a little forced without clothes,’ said Avril. ‘So what’s troubling you, Florence, dear?’
Sensing an opportunity, I told them about the row at the boarding house, about the annoying teenager, Cassie. When I mentioned the dog, there was a hissing and a muttering from the back of the room, a sense of subdued excitement.
Are you sure it was a real dog, not a grim?
I finished by telling them that I was going to be homeless in a week.
‘Well, that won’t be a problem,’ said Avril. ‘There must be any number of houses in town only too happy to rent to a polite young policewoman.’
The steam thickened again and the smell of eucalyptus intensified. It struck me how easy it would be to fall asleep in here, and how dangerous. It really was very hot. It occurred to me the pranksters at work could add Sweating Like a Pig in a Steam Room to their colour chart.
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