A couple of buses. A van with Good Luck Restaurant emblazoned on the side. Two or three police Land Rovers. Twenty or thirty cars. Anna kept looking back as they drove on, but no-one else came over the hill. She put her hand in her pocket again, gripping the cross. More about Nan than any faith; holding it gave her some sort of strength. She didn’t know what kind it was, but she’d take whatever from wherever she had to now. For Mary’s sake, and her own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ANNA CHECKED THE rearview mirror continually, but there was no further sign of the mist. For now, at least, the immediate danger seemed to have passed.
As they drove, though, ugly knocking sounds came from under Minnie’s hood, and a rattling from somewhere in the chassis. Anna fumbled a cassette into the deck. Sibelius. Mary liked that. Fantasia. She’d seen the film. Soothe Mary, calm her down. And herself.
The knocking didn’t stop; it got louder. That last tearing rush to get out of town and the cross-country dash over rough roads had been too much for the old girl. Museum piece, Martyn had used to say.
Vera stared dully out of the window, chewing the skin around a thumbnail; Mary rocked, pale and silent, in the back, a stuffed toy clutched to her chest.
It was too easy to imagine Minnie broken down at the roadside, and her pounding on passing cars’ windows, begging them to at least take Mary. Until the killing mists, and what moved in them, drifted down the road.
Vera snorted a laugh.
“What?”
“Just thought. Our Bentley was back at the hotel. We could’ve travelled in style.” Vera’s voice almost cracked. “Fine. I’m fine.”
“I’m so sorry, Vera.”
She shook her head. “At least he’s out of it now. It’s over for him. He’s not in any more pain.”
Anna didn’t answer. Nothing she’d learned of the life to come had given any comfort so far.
Crossing a stretch of moorland, the column slowed; the police cars were pulling over. The other vehicles halted. Renwick got out of a Land Rover, pale and haggard, Stakowski beside her, close enough to catch her if she fell. Anna pulled Minnie in nearby, steam drifting out from under the hood.
“Anna. You made it.”
“Just about, but my car’s had it.”
“Doesn’t look too healthy. What do you reckon, Mike?”
“Aye. Think we’ve room for a little ’un.”
“OK. We’ll take you.”
“Thanks.”
“Got through to Manchester on the radio. It’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“They’ve got satellite pictures. Kempforth’s gone. Probably guessed that.”
“Yeah.” Didn’t make it easier, though. Witchbrook, the Creamery, Trafalgar Road – gone. Whatever she had thought of the place, it had been home.
“The mist has expanded east and westward, mainly. Swamped Burnley, Accrington, Oswaldtwistle, god knows how many little villages in between. They’re estimating thirty, forty thousand dead. At least ten thousand refugees.”
“Oh Christ.”
“Seems to have stopped for now, anyway. Wind’s not even shifting it.” Renwick’s voice shook; she dragged her sleeve across her eyes. “They’re setting up refugee camps in safe zones, prepping to evacuate as far as Manchester if it comes to that. Meantime they’re calling the army in, to try and contain it somehow.”
“How? They’re already dead.”
“We’ve got to try.”
More lives thrown away. The Somme; Passchendaele; nothing changed, nothing learnt. The same wastage. Maybe the ghosts were right to be so enraged.
“You never know,” said Renwick, “maybe this is it. Maybe it’ll stop here.”
“No,” said Anna. “I don’t think it will.”
“Well, we’ll just have to do our best. They’re going to target Ash Fell with an air-strike, like you suggested. Maybe that’ll work. Anyway, I’ve been given directions to the nearest refugee camp. First priority’s to get everyone to safety. Mike?”
“Ma’am?”
“Make sure everyone else knows where we’re heading. Also, make sure the other vehicles are all roadworthy. If any of them aren’t going to make it, let’s find out now and get the passengers on board one that will.” She touched her blood-matted hair. “I’m not losing anyone else.”
ANNA WATCHED THE Micra recede into the distance, then turned back to Mary. She had an arm round her but the child sat iron-stiff, stroking her stuffed toy’s head.
“Mary, I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Don’t bother.” Her voice was tiny, thin and brittle, like an old woman’s. “I’m not stupid.”
“What?”
“It’s Daddy, isn’t it? He’s dead. Like Mummy and Nan.”
“Yes.” Anna squeezed Mary round the shoulders, but the child didn’t respond. “Mary, I’m sorry.”
“You lied.”
“I had to.”
“You lied to me.” Anna had been braced for howling and sobbing, but this was worse: flat, cold, a boil festering into an abscess instead of venting its poison. “I hate you,” Mary said, a crack in her voice. “I hate grown-ups. You tell us to tell the truth and then you lie and you go away. You all go away and leave me and you die and it hurts–”
“Mary. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
“Daddy promised too. He lied. I hate him. I hate you all.”
“Mary–”
“Go away!” It was a scream. “Just... just bloody go away. You all do. You go away and you die. You never stay. You promise you will and then you don’t. Just go away!”
“Hey.” Vera touched Mary’s hair. “Hey.” Mary looked up at her. “It’s not your aunty’s fault. Or your daddy’s.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Vera. I lost my daddy, and my mummy, when I was about your age.”
“You used to be my age?”
Anna nearly laughed. “Yes, I did, you cheeky little madam,” Vera said. “It hurts. I know it hurts. I had to take care of my brother when it happened. It wasn’t easy. He was... so hurt by it all. But I had to be strong. I was the eldest. I would have done anything to stop him hurting. But I couldn’t. And that was the worst of all. I know exactly what it’s like, sweetheart.”
Mary sniffed a couple of times.
“It’s OK,” said Vera. “Come here.”
Carefully, hesitantly, she put her arms round Mary. The child stayed like rock for a second, and then she was screaming, punching and pounding Vera with her small fists. Anna reached for her; Vera waved her back, held on. The child fell against her, sobbing, howling against the suit jacket, curling up around the pain. Vera’s eyes met Anna’s. Neither of them could say anything.
“Anna?” said Renwick. “Have you still got your notes?”
“Yes. Sir Charles’ diary, too.”
“Good. Have a look while we’re en route. See if there’s anything that can help us.”
Anna nodded.
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“I need to ask you...”
“Yes?”
“The missing child. Roseanne Trevor. She’s definitely dead?”
“Boss–”
“Shut up, Mike. Anna? Is she?”
“Yes.”
“Did she suffer?”
Anna didn’t answer.
“Joan, don’t go bloody torturing yourself.”
“Mike, I told you to shut up and just fucking drive. Anna–”
“I’m... I’m sorry. Yes.”
The air went out of Renwick; she sagged over the dashboard.
“Boss?” Stakowski reached a hand out.
“Keep your eyes on the road!” Everyone jumped. Stakowski withdrew his hand; the Land Rover’s engine purred. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Just... everybody, thanks, but... leave me alone for a bit.”
Renwick sat back in her seat and looked out of the window. Stakowski drove, looking straight ahead. Anna fumbled the book open; beside her and a million
miles away, Vera sang, voice wavering with her own grief:
“Heelya ho, boys, let her go, boys, swing her head round and hold together...”
A shrieking whoosh from overhead; she looked up. Half a dozen jet fighters, streaking towards Kempforth.
A little later there were muffled explosions, bright orange flashes in the distance. Then nothing. The mark on her breast stung. She looked back to the journal, tried to focus. Couldn’t. What good was it? Oh, she had the Sight alright, but what good had it done? Seeing something didn’t mean you could stop it; it just left you feeling more helpless.
“Heelya ho, boys, let her go, boys, sailing homeward to Mingulay...”
THE TESTAMENT OF PRIVATE OWEN SHORE CONTINUED seeing always the dead the loneliness the bodies everywhere cringing in the trenches under the constant hammering of exploding shells constant dread of the gas that might roll in at any moment of the snipers of the german flammenwerfer but worst of all is the waiting the helpless waiting and the rain beats down foul stagnant trench water laps around my groin i grip my rifle tighter with sodden gloves shivering with cold staring across the pulverised landscape of mud ponded with great drowning shellholes full of fouler water still and i stand here i stand alone with the comrades bodies scattered round and the germans starting to advance i did not run desert or shirk my duty i forced myself to fight the war come what may forever and ever war without end amen even dead it does not end for oh yes i am dead dead but dreaming dreaming eternally of the war trapped almost always in the monotonous horrors of the moments i lived and can never now escape and the rain beats down foul stagnant trench water laps around my groin i grip my rifle tighter with sodden gloves shivering with cold
JUST BEFORE DARK they reached the camp on the moors. Floodlights lit tents and prefab huts, ringed with a barbed-wire fence. Soldiers patrolled a perimeter dotted with sandbagged machine-gun emplacements; helicopters clattered overhead. Their column was directed to a separate, neighbouring enclosure, joining a motley collection of parked-up civilian transports.
A tall black army sergeant ran up. “Inspector Renwick?”
Renwick climbed out slowly, as if bearing the world’s weight. “Chief Inspector.”
“Sorry, ma’am. Sergeant Itejere. Welcome to Camp Dunwich.”
“Thanks.”
“Our OC would like to see you when you’ve a minute.”
“Be right there.” She swayed. Stakowski caught her elbow. She shrugged him off. “I’m fine.”
“Boss, you need to see the MO.”
“Later, Mike. There’s more important stuff. Sergeant, how did the airstrike go?”
He shook his head. “Missiles veered off-course. None of them even hit the target. And then we lost contact with the planes.”
“Christ. Anna, did you find anything? Anything at all?”
Anna shook her head; truth be told she’d just stared miserably at the same page throughout the whole journey.
Renwick squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve done everything you can. Go and rest up.”
“D’you want this?” Anna held out the journal.
“You hang onto it for now.” Renwick looked grey and haggard, one eye still bloodshot. If anything, it looked worse than before. “Sergeant, can you–?”
“Yes, ma’am. This way, everybody.” Itejere smiled at Mary as she passed, ruffled her hair. Mary just blinked up at him with old eyes, as if viewing someone she knew was fated soon to die.
THEY WERE WEDGED into a tent with twenty or thirty other refugees; you got a blanket, a pillow and just enough space to sit up or to curl up in. It was warm, at least, but Anna could barely breathe for the reek of sweat, flatulence, feet and worse. From outside a muffled voice boomed through some kind of speaker. And any moment the alarm might sound, signalling some new threat.
“This is horrible,” Mary said, huddled between Anna and Vera. “I want to go home.”
“We can’t, chuck,” Vera said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s gone, love.”
“Vera–”
“Can’t cosset her all the time, Anna. You’ve got to be straight with her.”
Mary sniffled; Vera stroked her hair, sang to her softly. “Heelya ho, boys, let her go, boys...”
Anna turned away. So this was her fate; after a brief period of kidding herself she mattered, she was sidelined again. Couldn’t help Renwick, couldn’t even help Mary. Insight without influence. Knowledge without power.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Mustn’t cry in front of Mary. Oh Christ. Have to get out. Stay and you’ll blubber like a kid.
“Can you look after Mary for a few minutes?” Vera nodded. Anna picked her way through the limbs and bodies tangled on the tent floor and out into the night.
Going away again. All of you, you always go away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THEY’D SET UP a TV screen on a stand in the open space near the tents. A crowd had gathered; Anna saw jeans, t-shirts, tracksuit bottoms, saris, shalwar kameez.
The Prime Minister was speaking: “... any measures to defend our people against this cowardly, unwarranted terrorist attack...”
“Terrorists,” someone mumbled.
“Fucking Pakis,” said someone else.
Anna saw several Asians start to move away. Heads turned. Someone grabbed one of the Asian men by the arm. Shouting, a scuffle; then the fists started flying. Screams. The soldiers moved in; Anna walked quickly off. Her hand slipped into her pocket and gripped Nan’s cross.
She found a row of latrines between the tents. Inside they’d been partitioned into sections – not individual, but at least you had some privacy. Despite the cold weather she gagged on the stench. She rummaged in her backpack, found a jar of menthol rub. She rubbed some under her nose; the smell diminished.
The grief was a dull, throbbing ache, sealed behind a wall. But then she remembered Martyn hiding his face in Eva’s shoulder, Nan’s arms tightening around her at that last goodbye, and the wall cracked. She doubled over, felt her face contort. The sobs felt like she was trying to vomit up her grief. After a few minutes it seemed to be over. She wiped her eyes, breathed deep, tried to compose herself, but then the weeping hit again.
Grief was like a virus. She’d been like this after Dad had died; that or sunken, listless, unable to function.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something then, Nan would have said. For a second, Anna thought she’d heard Nan say it. She blinked, sat up straight. Something was digging into her clenched hand. She looked; it was the cross. No. Nan was right. Focus. So she’d lost people? Who hadn’t?
She dug out Sir Charles’ journal again. If there was any solution it would be here, and she’d been too stupidly numb to look for it. He hadn’t just cowered there waiting to die. He’d hidden the book in the wall, guided her and Vera to it. ...it must fall to others to avert the cataclysm. I will use a spell of concealment to hide this journal in a place of safety, until the time is right. There was something here; something that’d help.
After Sir Charles’ last diary entry, the book was half-full of blank pages. She combed through the filled pages, searching. But what for? She had no background in the occult; even if she found it, she wouldn’t recognise it.
Sir Charles’ neat copperplate gave way to blurred, unmarked yellowish-white, and then, three or four pages of black scribble flickered past. Anna leafed back through the journal until she found them again.
The White Song, it said at the top.
The Black Song had opened the gates.
She read.
If all else fails, one hope remains. The White Song requires little effort compared to the Black. The Black Song violates Nature’s laws; it is like pushing a boulder up a near-vertical slope. The White Song is more of a gentle push; it tips the balance and sends the boulder rolling back down the mountainside.
“But how?”
I reproduce the text of the White Song phonetically overleaf. Two conditions must be
met for it to be effective.
Firstly – it can only be sung by one who witnessed the gates opening.
Secondly – a blood sacrifice was required to open the gates; another is needed to close them. Fortunately the sacrifice is much smaller in magnitude.
The White Song must be prefaced by the sacrifice of the singer’s child. Male, female, eldest or youngest, are immaterial. The child may even be adopted; ties of affection, not blood, are what count.
Unless both these conditions are met, the gates remain open.
She and Vera were the only witnesses; neither had any children.
Ties of affection, not blood–
Mary.
Anna slammed the book closed. She wanted to rip out the pages, stuff it into the latrine, burn it.
But it could be the only chance–
No. Never.
But what pressure might they bring to bear? Even torture, if there was no other way to stop the dead?
She wanted to laugh. Again, she could see what others couldn’t, but it brought her no joy. Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise.
The harrowed, wretched faces in the tent. The reek of the latrines. The stench of chlorine. The low sobbing. The misery. Kempforth gone, the mist advancing, perhaps until it blanketed the earth from pole to pole, shore to shore. If that was the choice, could she, in all conscience, refuse to give what was required?
If it was Mary? Yes.
She stuffed the book into her backpack. There might be a way round it. Small print. Something. If Vera asked, she’d say she was reading the journal still, looking for help, but for now at least, she’d say she’d found none. She desired Vera, had even come to rely on her to an extent, but she wasn’t sure she’d trust anyone with this–
Outside, a klaxon blared; shouts, running feet. Someone screaming. Then more screams, breaking glass–
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