by Jason Foss
For a while no words passed. Only the laboured sound of Piers Plant’s breath mingled with the renewed drumming above.
‘You will tell me where you are hiding; you don’t stay here in the daytime, do you?’ Rowan had to break what resolve remained in the man’s breast. ‘You have to let me help you find a better place, one where someone is not going to blunder into you.’
‘I don’t hide here,’ Plant stated sullenly.
‘You can’t outwit Rowan, dear Oak. So tell me.’ She advanced to ruffle his wet hair, but he shrank away. ‘Don’t force me to guess.’
‘No, it isn’t safe.’
‘You don’t even trust me? Me?’
‘I don’t trust Him.’
‘But he’s helping you, Oak. Don’t you understand? We’re all helping you.’
‘I know what happened at Imbolc,’ he stated, ‘I know what he did to Hazel.’
Rowan was glad he was unable to see her look of utter confusion. ‘What?’
‘It was a spell of his.’
‘What?’ she repeated, even more incredulous.
‘A spell. A curse. He has the power, everyone knows he has the power.’
‘Oak, what has happened to you?’
‘He could have tampered with the brew.’ Oak was excited, moving around the hut, brushing by her, knocking his hands on the walls as he gesticulated. ‘Don’t you see how simple it would have been for him to add a poison to the brew?’
‘Have some sense, please!’
‘But he’s evil, Rowan, evil. Dark, dark evil. He’s turning your mind, if you can’t see it. That’s why he hates me so much. He knows that I know and he knows that I can break the spell and break his power!’
Rowan stood back, alarmed, trying to think, appalled by what had happened to Oak. Hiding her true feelings, she tried to calm the hysteria. ‘Look, we’ll play it your way. Stay in hiding, I’ll try to find somewhere else for you to go, somewhere you’ll be safe.’
‘I’ve been working on my plan,’ he said brightly. ‘All I need is time to complete my research, then I’ll be ready for them all.’
‘Honestly, Oak, you must be careful. Don’t do anything silly.’
Silly; what a grossly understated word to use. Recklessly idiotic would best describe her fear of Oak in his animated state.
‘Devastating, it will be devastating when I hold the power.’
‘I can’t talk to you like this, I’ll come again when you’re talking sense.’ She shook away his grasping arm.
‘Rowan!’
‘Goodnight, Oak.’ She opened the hut door.
‘I won’t come back here!’ he warned. ‘So don’t look for me.’
Rowan moderated her tone. ‘Goodnight Oak, and for the sake of everything we hold sacred, don’t do anything stupid. Please!’
She left the hut, quivering with anger, but strangely pleased that Oak was edging back into her power. Just that one word ‘research’ had betrayed him.
Chapter 9
Sally looked at Flint as if he had walked into the department through the wall, instead of via the door.
‘Ah, hello, Jeff. We’ve all been wondering about you…’
‘Went away – then got ill.’
‘You were missed.’ She put heavy, oppressive emphasis on this last word.
‘Last week of term, exams over…’
‘People still expect...’
By ‘people’ she meant Professor Grant.
‘Messages.’ Sally unpinned a fan of white notes off the board. ‘Post.’ She pushed a pile in his direction.
Clutching his heap and smiling apologetically, he moved out of range of the rays of disapproval. He had been listed AWOL, trouble was coming, more hassle. The corridor to his office was dark compared to the bright summer’s day outside. It matched his mood.
No-one had opened the office window during his absence, and the spider plant gasped for air and water. He pushed the window as wide as it would go, then turned to his messages. He’d had a call from Vikki on Wednesday: ‘Where the hell are you? Ring me ASAP. Very urgent, Vikki.’ Then every day since, the same message. He sighed, then took out the smallest envelope in the heap. It opened to reveal a greetings card on recycled paper. Flint paused to admire the naïve art parrots, then turned to the message.
Dear Jeffrey,
We’ve had such a good year, but I’m going home to write up my thesis, then on to Norfolk for the summer. Please understand, always be friends,
Chrissie xxx
He sucked in his cheeks and would once have muttered ‘easy come easy go’, but living alone was never easy. The parrots slid back into their envelope. He should keep a special file of his ‘Dear Jeffrey’ letters. He flicked through the rest of the pile, then found the enthusiasm to telephone Kingshaven.
Vikki almost bounced down the telephone. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘Stonehenge.’
‘Look, I’m not in a mood for jokes. Piers Plant has not come back; no one can find him. He’s not keeping his appointments, he’s not on holiday, he’s even stopped ringing in sick. I’ve interviewed everyone from his next-door neighbour to the woman who sells him his herbal teas. He’s just vanished, or that’s what we’re to think...’
‘And?’
‘I know where he is. He’s here, in Kingshaven.’
‘Eh?’
Vikki related her attempt to tail Mrs Plant the dark.
‘I followed her last night, but lost her by the canal. I thought she’d go right, but she must have gone left, into town. She was carrying a shopping basket.’
‘Grandma visits little Red Riding Hood,’ Flint said dryly.
‘Are you all right?’ Vikki asked.
‘Yes. I’ve just had a bad year, it will pass.’
‘Well if she’s taking him things, he’s not hiding with friends. There are lots of places in town he can hide: abandoned churches, old warehouses, old factories, air raid shelters. He could have the key to any of those old places.’
‘Have you told the cops?’
‘Of course not, they treat me like a child. I’m cracking this one. Can you come down today?’
‘It’s more than my job’s worth, ma’am.’
‘Have you been smoking something?’
‘No, it’s against my religion.’
‘Jeff, can you be serious for a moment, just for a moment?’
Go on, said a portion of his brain, why not? ‘Okay, look, I expect a bit of heavy hassle, but I’ll try to fix something up. I’ll get Tyrone to drive me down – I think you two should meet.’
‘Now?’
He checked his watch. ‘I’ll ring you back.’
A quick search of the department located Tyrone in the computer room, working on his thesis. Professor Grant was walking in the direction of the Staff Bar as they emerged.
‘Ah, Jeffrey. I was trying to track you down all last week.’ The Professor hovered, looking up at Flint, waiting for some sort of explanation.
‘Oh, tied up with research.’
‘Well, is everything fine for two thirty?’ This line was just polite banter, there was no real question in his voice.
Flint thought Shit, but said, ‘I’m sorry, Ian, I have an urgent appointment.’
He topped his superior by a good four inches, his beard being roughly on the professor’s eye line. The Professor looked away in disgust, then burst back in a bluster, ‘But it’s the Academic Board. The meeting has been timetabled for six weeks!’
‘Sorry, present my apologies, would you?’
‘This simply will not do! You have to come; what can be more pressing?’
‘I’m up to here with research.’ Flint raised a hand to his chin, emphasising the height difference.
‘Missing students? You’re still hunting missing students. You’re not the College Welfare Officer – when will you learn?’ The bluster mellowed. ‘Well you can relax, young whatsisname has turned up.’
‘Timmy Wright?’
/> ‘The Chemist,’ Professor Grant said with derision. ‘He was selling Coca-Cola on the beach in San Tropez. A fine waste of three years’ education, but then what can you expect of northern scientists?’
He touched a finger on Flint’s lapel. ‘Two thirty; don’t be late.’
The junior lecturer was left motionless as Professor Grant shambled away. He was beyond emotional reaction, which was probably fortunate. Returning slowly to his office, he took down the file he had labelled ‘Timmy’, poured the contents into the recycling basket, then ripped off the sticky label. If this enigma was not solved very quickly, Piers Plant would not be the only one requiring psychiatric help.
It was the following lunchtime when Flint and Tyrone met Vikki inside Auntie Joyce’s Tea Shoppe. This was one of a dozen half-timbered buildings in the centre of Kingshaven that had escaped extensive remodelling by the Luftwaffe or post-war urban planners. The gentrified café served a good range of teas, excellent home-made scones, and captured Jeffrey Flint’s devotion with its chocolate cake. Only the sharp prices dinted the archaeologist’s enthusiasm.
When Vikki and Tyrone were introduced, the student made heavy work of laying on charm, slapping his monogrammed briefcase on to the table and fiddling with the combination. Flint noticed this was 924 and winced at the poseur. Tyrone’s data on Lucy’s disappearance made an impressive pile, but still lacked the crucial item that Barbara had confided. Vikki too had to remain ignorant.
Tyrone produced a wad of ideas. ‘I checked his family tree at St Catherine’s House. Apart from his mum, Plant’s closest relative is an aunt in Oulwich.’
‘The police went there last week. I talked them into it,’ Vikki said. ‘She knows nothing, and she’s going to be in France for most of the summer.’
Tyrone scribbled a note in the margin of his list. ‘Right. I’ve checked through the list of senior people involved in local archaeology, folklore and the like. I’ve telephoned ten to find out roughly who Plant usually associated with. There are three or four who might be classed as his friends who live in Kingshaven. Only one is in the right area suggested by the direction his mother took.’
Vikki peeked at the list, unimpressed. ‘I’ve seen all these people, and if he’s with a friend why is his mother taking him things?’
Flint interrupted. ‘Vikki, we agree with you that he’s probably hiding out in familiar territory. He probably makes a rendezvous with his mother to pick up food, then returns to wherever he’s hiding. If the police question the old dear, she only knows she met him once or twice. Even if they beat her up, she can’t disclose his hiding place.’
‘So all we have to do is find the hiding place,’ Vikki said.
‘I’ve a few ideas,’ Tyrone said. A heap of photocopies skimmed across the table top. ‘English Heritage had Sebastian Leigh draw up an inventory of buildings for potential scheduling last year. There are eighty-six, but you can cross half of them out immediately.’
Vikki looked at the list for a moment. ‘So, the sooner we start...’
She made a move to pay, but Flint stopped her. ‘We have a sponsor.’
A walk along the towpath was the beginning of a long day of alternative tourism. Kingshaven’s port had moved to seaward, the old wharves which had depended on the canal trade now had little use when containers arriving from Holland would be unloaded at the new cargo terminal. Warehouses, slipways, and lock-keepers’ huts were as redundant as the men who had once worked there. In a maze of old brick, the trio hoped for chance sightings and searched for evidence of recent use. Hard cobbles soon produced aching shins and by eight in the evening, dining on fish and chips on the parapet of Castlereagh Bridge, even Vikki was demoralised.
George Carlyle’s council house was only a mile away, and on Flint’s suggestion, they tried him as a last hope for the day. Through the open curtains, they could see George and his wife sitting on their paisley sofa, watching a TV situation comedy and drinking tea. The visitors went to the top of the side passage and knocked at the kitchen door.
Mrs Carlyle smiled at them, shouting to her husband after she had opened the door. George came through into the kitchen, but the face of the old soldier fell as he saw them. ‘I can’t help you.’ He turned around and went back to the television.
‘George, we need your help,’ Flint called, smiling towards the frail face of Mrs Carlyle as he squeezed into her kitchen.
He repeated his line again as he rushed into the lounge. ‘We need your help. Can you think of anywhere Plant might be hiding?’
George was back on the settee once more, looking deeply unhappy. ‘No, it’s like I told the police.’
‘Did he have any special friends, apart from Lucy?’ Vikki had also forced her way into the room.
‘He doesn’t want you finding him. He sent me a message.’
‘Yes – we were there,’ Flint said.
‘Another one. It was waiting on our back steps last Tuesday.’
‘Oh George, don’t.’ His wife suddenly left the room, and did not reappear.
‘She loved that cat,’ George said, still not looking up, ‘but we had to give it to the police – what was left of it.’
‘What did they do to it?’ Vikki asked.
‘You don’t want to know missy.’
Flint bet she did.
‘That cat has all but finished me,’ George said.
‘George,’ Vikki knelt beside the armchair and spoke seductively, ‘we have to find him before he kills a person. Who did he go to see? Who came to see him?’
The attendant looked at the three faces. ‘You’re here now, so they will have seen you; the damage is done. I might as well be shot as a hero as shot for a coward.’
He breathed deeply and linked his hands across his belly as he thought. ‘Tim Hapgood, the librarian...’ George began to list names. ‘Sir Ralph, you know, the Chairman of the Society. Miss Clewes from the teashop, though not recently... That Miss Woodfine from County Museums... That bloke with the earring from the archaeology unit, what’s his name?’
‘Sebastian Leigh?’ suggested Tyrone. ‘I’ve got all these people.’
George continued in his reluctant monotone. ‘Lydia Rufus-Yawl, she’s the big woman who likes family history. Lady Darkeholme...’
The list would have gone on, but Flint stopped him. ‘No friends? Real friends, no- one he went to the pub with?’
‘He always went alone. To the Masons usually.’
‘Been there,’ Vikki said tiredly. ‘No-one knows anything.’
‘Have you got any other premises, let’s say a store, or an old church under renovation; somewhere he might have had keys to?’
‘No.’
Vikki almost burst with frustration. ‘Where did he go apart from that friggin’ museum?’
Adverts replaced tepid television, and George looked directly at her. ‘Well, that was Mister Plant all over, he lived in the museum. He’d stay late every night after I locked up and treated it like his own personal castle. It even feels like he’s there now he’s gone.’
George wasn’t the type to be mystical, so Flint was puzzled. ‘Is this just a feeling, or is there any evidence? Does he smoke or anything? He doesn’t leave a vapour trail wherever he goes?’
‘No.’ George muttered a few obvious thinking noises before declaring, ‘But on Monday, I asked Carol the cleaner where he was, thinking he was somewhere around. There wasn’t much post, you see, he usually gets ten letters a day. There was only two waiting on Monday.’
‘You opened them?’
‘I gave them to his replacement, the lady from the County, Doctor Woodfine.’
‘Not Suzanne Woodfine?’ Flint asked, as a disappointed aside. Archaeology was a small world, and he knew the name well.
It was as if a heavenly revelation had suddenly burst to illuminate Vikki’s face. ‘He goes to the museum to pick up his post,’ she breathed in a hushed voice.
All three men looked at her, agreeing with the inspiration.
‘It makes one wonder what’s so important about a few letters,’ Tyrone said.
‘It’s Lucy,’ squeaked Vikki, ‘it has to be Lucy.’
‘Could Lucy be writing to him?’ Flint asked George.
George shook his head. ‘I dunno; now anything is possible. I could say the Martians were writing to him and someone would write it in the paper.’
‘When does the postman come?’ Vikki asked.
‘Very early; the post is usually there by the time I get in at half eight.’
‘Or rather it isn’t,’ Tyrone threw in. ‘He’d have to go there every morning, in daylight. Could he get in and out without being seen?’
‘Is there a secret passage or anything?’ Vikki probed.
The suggestion was met by canned laughter from the television. George frowned. ‘I think that’s just being silly, dear.’
‘We’ll have to get in first thing tomorrow and check,’ Vikki declared.
Flint groaned. ‘If we’re going to mess with the mail, we’ll have to be out before Suzanne Woodfine arrives. I once dug with her sister, and she hates me. They’re both bloody impossible.’
‘He would have to get in after dark, then wait till the post came, then leave again,’ Vikki said slowly, at the focus of everyone’s attention. ‘It would make more sense if he just stayed there overnight. No-one would know. He’ll have all the keys, he’ll know how to switch off your burglar alarms. I bet if we go to his office now we’d find him sleeping under the table.’
‘Now?’ George looked concerned.
‘In the dark?’ Flint had seen too many horror films set in unlit museums.
‘What’s wrong? Scared? We can’t go stomping around in opening hours, can we?’ Vikki added a taunt to her tone.
‘We should call in the police,’ Tyrone said.
Vikki quashed the idea before it could grow. ‘No, no, they won’t be interested. And if I’m wrong, we would look bloody stupid.’
Flint was still objecting. ‘But if we go in alone, and you’re right?’
She smiled. ‘Then I get a bloody good story.’
Chapter 10
The observer heard car doors slam closed, then saw the four people emerge from the back street, heading towards the museum with purpose. Vikki Corbett was in front, with her hands dug into the pockets of her long purple cardigan. Jeffrey Flint came next, seeming to be cajoling George Carlyle. Poor George – he should have done as he was told. At the rear was a younger man, not recognised, who could be some associate of that vile reporter.
