Sympathy for the Devil

by Howard Marks

  In a few moments she reached the line of trees. She edged the bike slowly in among them. On one side was an empty lot choked with weeds. On the other a stretch of rough ground with no cover. She stared at the spot where she’d seen the figure. There was nothing there, only some ancient rusted cans and ahead the wind over the empty waters.

  She rode back and took the flyover to Penarth. A thick, icy sea mist had obscured the view of the old pier and the channel. The streets were deserted.

  She found Powell’s office in a narrow lane one block back from the waterfront. There was nothing ostentatious about it: just an old warehouse with a large, polished steel door. There were no signs outside, just the street number. She parked between two muddy vans, and rang the single buzzer.

  The door swung open to reveal a large hall with a floor of varnished pine leading to stairs. The two guards from the previous night were seated behind a desk, looking bored.

  Above on the landing Powell’s tall figure was just visible. He was wearing a suit of the same cut as the previous evening, in a darker blue. He smiled thinly at her and gestured to her to follow him. She saw rows of technicians sitting bowed over editing units, their backs to the doorway. All were peering at blurred CCTV camera footage, most of it showing high streets and club entrances after closing time, the usual drunken brawls and young couples in clinches in doorways.

  She recognised the material immediately. It was a popular show that had been running for many seasons. The format was a simple one and had been franchised to many networks across the world. Each week clips were chosen from across the nation’s CCTV networks. Most were crudely comic scenes of drunken antics, sometimes violent, occasionally intimate and erotic. If the participants gave their permission, and surprisingly they often did, the faces would be shown. But in many cases they were concealed.

  Powell beckoned her over to one of the monitors. A couple of young lovers with hidden faces were framed in a shop doorway, the woman kneeling on the ground, her blouse unbuttoned, to expose a breast, pale under the street light.

  ‘And some people actually give their permission to be shown like that?’ Catrin said. Powell turned back to the rows of screens, as if noticing them properly for the first time.

  ‘Of course,’ he laughed. ‘Though we pay them. That helps.’

  ‘So the pieces are set-ups?’

  ‘Never. That’s what sets us apart from all the other reality shows. The people you see don’t know they’re being watched at the time. What you see always is raw human behaviour.’

  He was still smiling, and keeping a few paces’ distance between them. She thought of how tactile he’d been with her the previous night, and wondered what had changed.

  ‘It must have cost, the contracts with all the CCTV companies?’ she said.

  ‘It all took time, like any business does.’

  Powell’s voice sounded calm, remote, as if he was talking about something in the distant past that didn’t really concern him any more. They walked along a long corridor that led to a private office. There were no external windows, she noted, the place was like a bunker. The room was divided into two sections by a lacquer screen with faded panels. In one there was just visible the image of a pigtailed mandarin bent over a woman, her robe rucked up around her waist. Beneath the screen were several racks of DVDs and audio tapes in a locked, reinforced-glass case. Beyond the screen, the inner section of the room was filled with more of these locked cases fixed high on to the walls.

  Some held early Owen Face posters, others signed and framed photographs of the band before Face’s disappearance. The case at the end contained what looked like unpublished designs for the cover of their third album, ‘The Lower Depths’. The overall effect was not unlike looking into a small shrine or chapel.

  ‘You’ve got quite a collection,’ Catrin said. Powell was looking slightly embarrassed, apologetic. The first sign he’s shown me of weakness, she thought.

  He’d shown her to a chair that was high off the ground, ribbed steel, not entirely comfortable. She sat, crossed her legs, aware of his eyes on her all the time.

  ‘The fire,’ she said. ‘Any actual evidence of arson? Any traces of accelerants, fuels, telltale oxidisers?’

  ‘The specialist Fires Unit didn’t find anything.’

  She knew most fires usually left some traces of their origin. The Fires Unit were among the most thorough in the country; that they had found no traces meant the starters had either been lucky or very professional.

  ‘Any threats to your person since the fire?’

  ‘None that I’m aware of.’

  ‘But you’ve hired those two bodyguards in case?’

  He was opening the box she’d seen last night, taking out a pipe, putting some bags in a line on the table.

  ‘You look a little tense,’ he said. ‘I thought you might like to unwind.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Tense is how I like it when I’m working.’

  Smiling, he pointed to the first two bags.

  ‘Normal hashish, Moroccan, Afghan, Lebanese,’ he said. ‘It’s made from cutting, heating, and pressing the flowering tops of the plant with cellulose, or in Morocco henna.’

  ‘But those?’

  He opened the bags, dropped pinches of the contents into the bowl of the pipe. ‘These are temple sticks, made from the pure resin. From Melana and Melani.’

  She’d barely heard of these places. In India somewhere, she wasn’t sure. ‘You’re quite a connoisseur, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, the police training all those years ago had its uses.’

  He took a lump from another bag, held a long flame under it until it softened, smouldered, giving out a soft bluish glow.

  ‘Bombay Black,’ he said. ‘Five parts hashish, one part opium.’ He let a few thin flakes drop into the bowl.

  With a long splint he was lighting the bowl, taking a shallow puff. The smoke drifted towards Catrin’s nostrils. She was beginning to feel high just on the smell of it. He passed the pipe across. It was a situation she knew she should have felt very uncomfortable with. She was a serving officer, this was a man she hardly knew. A rich man, powerful, trying to get her high, possibly to compromise her. But strangely she didn’t feel that way. Something in her suggested the man was on the level, wasn’t trying to take advantage of her. He was interested in her, yes. But quite possibly for exactly the reason he’d given her: because for her this would be personal, not just another job.

  He’d left the pipe smoking on a small brass stand, on her side of the table. For a moment she was tempted, then she shook her head. He poured her a glass of wine.

  ‘Now down to business,’ he said.

  It was that weird voice she’d heard on the phone. He was holding the smoke down deep in his lungs as he spoke. He’d begun to take out DVDs and was loading them into the player under the monitor.

  ‘This is some background for you on the Owen Face case.’

  ‘Rhys would have known most of this before he started?’

  Powell didn’t seem to have heard. The lights dimmed, then a picture of the members of Seerland gradually appeared on the screen. This was amateur footage, filmed from the side of the stage, the picture blurred and shaky. At the centre of the stage Catrin could see a young Owen Face, the spotlight behind him. His eyes were invisible behind dark smudges of make-up as he screamed into the microphone.

  Powell pointed up at the figure of Face on the screen.

  ‘Look how distant he seems from the others, off in his own world.’

  She wasn’t sure what Powell meant. Owen Face just looked like a typical lead singer to her, full of undying love for himself.

  ‘Distant? In what way?’ she asked.

  He paused. ‘Despite all his rock god posturing on stage, in private he seems to have been a very reserved figure. Solitary, unworldly.’ There was a sudden focus to his voice now. Surprising after the strong cocktail he’d just toked up. ‘He wasn’t at all materialistic and he
liked isolation. Apparently he didn’t install a phone or a sound system when he moved into his flat down in the docks.’

  The camera angle broadened to show Face flanked by his band-mate, Leigh Nails, a tall gangling youth wearing a ruffled shirt. He was bent over his guitar as if praying to it.

  ‘Leigh was the real musician of the group,’ he said. ‘Leigh and Face were childhood friends, then shared a bedsit at university.’ As Powell spoke he reached down to fill her glass.

  ‘This was filmed at Cardiff University at the time they released their first EP. Face and Leigh had just finished their degree courses – Psychology and Philosophy.’

  ‘And the other two band members?’

  ‘The other two, Teifi and Jonnie, had already dropped out. They spent their days in dead-end jobs, the nights writing songs together.’

  The camera was focused on Face, with Leigh Nails moving in and out of shot. The singer and drummer were no more than blurred figures on the edges. The next piece of footage had been released by the record company, but the camerawork was no more sophisticated. Again the focus was Face, his right arm windmilling furiously over his guitar.

  The camera zoomed in, revealing several horizontal scars on his right forearm. Catrin leant forward in her chair, then looked up at Powell. He seemed to have anticipated her question.

  ‘As you know, Face had a history of self-harm. By the time they signed their first record deal, he was making no attempt to hide it.’

  ‘He got careless?’

  ‘The cynics claimed he thought it added to his appeal with his teenage fanbase. Seen enough?’

  Catrin nodded, then told him to continue. She had already seen the video that appeared next several times. It had accompanied the first single released after Face’s disappearance, which had hit number one in the charts on a wave of sympathy for the remaining band members. Leigh, Jonnie and Teifi were filmed in front of a backdrop on which a series of images of Face were projected.

  Catrin picked up her wine and took a sip. Powell showed her an image of Face as a cowboy-suited toddler. ‘Face’s mother gave her permission to Leigh and the boys to use the personal family stuff.’

  ‘I thought she wanted to keep a low profile?’

  ‘She did. I suppose she thought if he was still alive this childhood stuff might push him into making contact again.’

  He picked up another DVD from the pile.

  ‘Now you might find this interesting,’ he said.

  In the centre of the screen, Powell’s company logo faded from sight. Then out of the dark, as in an old-fashioned film, a silent black-and-white scene gradually flickered. For the first minute or so the camera was static, seemingly attached to a tripod. Face, Leigh, Jonnie and Teifi ran in and out of frame, waving directly at the camera, making grotesque faces and mouthing obscenities.

  They weren’t wearing uniforms and Leigh had already reached his adult height, but it was clear that they were still schoolboys. Face stood directly in front of the lens, his mouth forming unintelligible words, while a giggling Jonnie made bunny ears with his fingers.

  She put down her glass. ‘Teen spirits?’

  ‘Most probably.’

  The action was taking place at the edge of a wooded area. The boys were running in and out among the trees. Teifi, the shortest of the group, was taking a flying leap at an oak tree and starting to climb.

  In the next shot the camera was clearly hand-held. Face, dressed in a cape, carried a thin wooden stick, on the end of which was a card with a swirling op art design. He displayed this to the camera, then spinned it with his hand in an exaggerated, theatrical gesture, like a magician’s assistant. He moved in a circle, the camera keeping him constantly in the centre of the frame. The combination of Face’s movements and the throbbing of the disc was making Catrin’s head ache. It was almost a minute before she sat upright and opened her eyes again.

  Powell was staring down at her.

  ‘Who was behind the camera?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what I’d pay good money to find out. This piece of film was found at his flat during the investigation into Face’s presumed suicide. When they showed it to his mother, she said she didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘And the boys in the band?’

  ‘Nothing. Old loyalties die hard, especially when it’s the police asking the questions.’

  The DVD played on, images of the disc replaced by another outdoor setting. The thickly wooded area could have been the same one as in the earlier scenes, the camera moving unsteadily through gaps between trees, a muddy path occasionally coming into view. Catrin had a sense of motion sickness, and she shut her eyes again for a few seconds. When she opened them, the camera was approaching a tunnel, moving down a leaf-covered slope. Patches of frost glistened in the grass. Whoever was behind the camera was half stepping, half gliding down towards the blackness of the tunnel’s entrance.

  The screen went black, and then faint light pulsed against the walls and roof. The camera tilted downwards, showing rings of candles on the floor in the middle of which there was a slumped form. Face was kneeling on the floor of the tunnel, his shoulders shaking. A figure that could have been Leigh stood over him, immobile, frightened. Beside him lay some paler shapes, four limbs neatly arranged, and perhaps a head in a pool of dark and on the far side, near another figure, was a hammer. Dark splashes were visible on the lower part of the wall, partially lit by the candles. Face’s head was jerking as he vomited, a thin trail of liquid hanging from his lips. Behind him something was growing in stature, something large and feathered with a long hooked beak. From its beak dripped the same dark liquid as on the floor and walls. The camera was spinning now, the images no longer clear, the walls shivering with a weak light. As Face turned to the camera, his mouth curled into a strange smile, the scene cut suddenly to a van parked at the back of a club, then the screen went black.

  Catrin was trembling; she clenched her arms around herself to stop it. The images had been no worse than in many horror films yet she was being drawn in. Just as the photos of the men in the woods had done. It was as if something deep in her memory had just been shaken loose. Was this what Powell had really brought her to see? Was what she had just witnessed, not Face alone, the true centre of his interest. She recalled the elaborate crucifix above his door, it was almost medieval or primitive, as if it was there as much to ward off evil as an object of faith.

  ‘What was that then?’ she asked softly.

  ‘The truth is, I don’t know what it was. Over the years I’ve placed a lot of small ads in the local papers, offering money for any Owen Face related material. The guy who sold it to me said he found it at a house-clearance sale. I pressed him and he said that the house had belonged to a photographer who’d recently died, name of Gerard Butcher.’

  ‘So you think this photographer might have been behind the camera?’

  ‘Doubtful. I looked into this Gerard Butcher, it turned out he wouldn’t have known the band at that age. He didn’t even live in Wales then.’

  ‘So how would he have acquired the film?’

  Powell shrugged. He was looking ashen, a little unsteady on his feet, though she imagined he must have watched the film many times before. ‘Butcher was an early fan, collected memorabilia. He was involved with the band through much of their career. Maybe he picked up the film among some other memorabilia, not knowing what he’d found. It’s impossible to know now he’s dead.’

  ‘Those shapes on the ground,’ Catrin said, taking a deep breath, ‘the limbs and the head. What are they? Animal parts?’

  As Powell ran the sequence again, he was half looking away, she noticed. He paused at the frame of pale limbs, the head shape on the floor.

  ‘I had a specialist lab, the best there is, go over it,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s just too dark, impossible to see.’

  He left the picture frozen on the image of the muddy path barely visible through the thick trees.

  ‘Could you make me a copy?
’ she asked. ‘I’d like to have a closer look at the woodland, compare it to what we can see in Rhys’s photos. Try to get some matches on the vegetation types.’

  Powell was staring grimly down at her. ‘That was the first thing I did when I saw them,’ he said. ‘I had the botanical specialist from the university in. He said both scenes show a similar type of deep woodland, all the plant forms consistent with the types in the national park in West Wales. We’re talking of hundreds of square miles of some of the most inaccessible terrain in the British Isles. He couldn’t even be sure the photos had been taken within Wales, the woodland appeared almost too virgin, as he put it. What he meant was there are no foreign species of plants in either scene. Apparently that’s quite unusual, like seeing a glimpse of the woodland as it used to be hundreds of years ago. There are still a few pockets of deep woodland that remain. But with the dimness, the poor picture quality, he couldn’t be more exact about the location.’

  ‘What about the specific plant types, couldn’t that narrow it down?’

  There was a light slapping sound, as Powell dropped a copy of the botanist’s report beside her chair. ‘He identified the same plant types in the background of both scenes. Rowans, goat willow, downy birches, among the larger trees silver birches, sessile oaks.’

  ‘Any symbolism there? Those trees in conjunction?’

  ‘Plenty. From Celtic lore, from Anglo-Saxon lore, Wicca, you name it. But all very contradictory. Some to do with warding off evil spirits, some with conjuring them up.’

  ‘So the places in the woods weren’t just random, they were chosen.’

  ‘Or they had associations before the scenes were shot there. But when my botanist did checks with Cadw and the Forestry Commission, he drew a blank on the location. All the ancient woodland is monitored fairly closely, all plant types charted, particularly those areas with past religious or cultic significance. But none of the existing databases had matches for these plant types in this combination in any known woods. It looks like the place has never actually been mapped, or like he said, as if we’re looking at snapshots of an environment that doesn’t exist in that form any more.’