by Jason Foss
‘What the hell has he done with her?’ Flint’s exhilaration at the discovery fell back to sober reality.
‘Pervert,’ Vikki said, although without feeling.
‘Look what I found,’ Tyrone pointed to two volumes of the Transactions propped up against the Lucy-shrine. He opened the 1932 volume at the contents page and spread it on the table. Of twelve papers, number four was entitled: Harken, D. P. S. ‘The Darkewater Megaliths’.
‘And 1964?’ Flint asked.
Tyrone repeated the action. ‘The first paper is by Dowling, H. H. — ‘Harriet’s Stone: a re-interpretation’.’
‘Who is Harriet Stone?’ Vikki read the title upside-down.
‘A question of what, rather than who,’ Tyrone corrected, turning to the relevant article. ‘Logically, it turns out to be one of the megaliths.’
He began to read the list of names on Dowling’s distribution map: ‘Harriet’s Stone, Devil’s Ring, South Barn A, B and C, White Ring, Twinbridge Stones, Yarley’s, Bramton East, Bramton West.’
Vikki looked out of her depth. ‘Does this mean anything, Professor?’
‘Lucy was into megaliths,’ Flint said, wondering about a small iron-bound box that had been carved with crude and vicious-looking runes. He took the assegai which had been discarded by Vikki and prised off the padlock.
‘Oh, look at this.’
Within the box lay three wax dummies. Flint took out the first: a tall figure with beard and glasses painted on to it, and a cushionful of pins stuck through it.
‘This explains my backache,’ he said dryly.
‘And this is me,’ Vikki breathed, taking out a smaller doll that clutched a sheet of rolled-up paper in its hands, and was also riddled with pins.
‘Which leaves me.’ Tyrone took out the third doll.
‘No,’ Flint took the doll from Tyrone, ‘I think not. Plant’s never met you, he probably doesn’t even know you exist, so this must be someone else.’
The wax image was of a man, dark haired, shorter than the Flint doll but taller than the Vikki. It had a tie painted around its neck and a small square of black card under its arm. Sprouting from the sides of its head was a pair of horns.
‘Candle wax,’ Flint said, thinking of candles, imagining he could still smell candles.
‘Let’s look at these letters before the police grab them,’ Vikki said.
Primitive senses submitted their veto. Flint was sniffing, imagining candles, but that was ludicrous. The attic had electric bulbs; Plant had not needed candles, not even for the Lucy-shrine. In the corner was a paraffin heater, unlit.
‘Can you smell candles?’ Flint asked. ‘I can, I’m sure of it.’ All three stopped and within moments, were certain. Filtering in from the galleries below was the acrid odour of smoke.
‘Shit, he’s set the place on fire!’
Vikki lost all her colour in an instant. ‘We’ll never get out in time. He’s trying to burn us alive!’
‘Ideas, ideas!’ Flint was close to panic.
‘He must have another way out,’ Tyrone stated, snapping his fingers.
‘Uh?’
‘He can’t afford to let himself be boxed in like we are; he must have another way out. He heard us come in and was able to outflank us.’ Tyrone swept his arm around. ‘Down there!’
The far corner of the void was the obvious place to try. Here the wing joined the main building, and they had already explored an attic at the same level. In a rush they fell on their knees by a bare section of plywood, thumping it furiously, probing every seam or crack with fingernails or assegai point.
‘Doc, you’re a film buff – ever seen Zulu?’ Tyrone asked. ‘This is how James Booth escapes from the burning hospital.’
‘Didn’t half of them die?’
Vikki thrust the spear point into a crack and jerked it sideways. Two inches broke off the end of the assegai, but the plywood panel came open. She dug in her fingers and pulled it away, then led the way towards salvation. A five-yard section of sloping roof void connected new annexe with old attic. Vikki crawled along the board across the roof-beams and declared there was another panel at the far end. The smell of smoke grew stronger as Vikki squirmed around and kicked open the far panel. Smoke flooded in.
‘Keep going!’ she was urged.
The main attic was unlit, only vague street-light came in through the row of dormer windows. Racking closed in on both sides, invisible detritus on the floor grabbed at shuffling feet, drifting smoke began to irritate the lungs and fear gripped the trio.
Vikki had groped her way through the discarded skulls and boxes of pottery to bang on the far door. ‘It’s locked.’
Flint came to her side, cursing a bruised shin, snapping on the light. Smoke poured under the door which led to the main staircase. This was functioning as a chimney, bringing up the fumes from below. It was no escape route. Plant’s warped mind had out-guessed them again. The curator could still be loose downstairs, performing his First Mrs Rochester act with a can of petrol. He had planned this.
‘We can’t go that way,’ Flint said, then fell back in a fit of coughs.
The light died. Someone had killed the master switch; the same someone who had disabled the fire alarms. For a moment, Flint suspected George – where was he? What was he doing? Had he even gone for the police? His throat thickened at the idea, or was it the smoke? They were in a trap; baited, now sprung.
Behind them, Tyrone forced open a paint-sealed gable window overlooking the staff car park. All three stuck their heads out into fresh air.
‘Oh God no,’ Vikki groaned as she saw the steep pitch of slates.
‘We’ve got to get out – this place has got wooden floors,’ Flint coughed.
‘I’m game.’ Tyrone ran a hand along the slates. The threatened rain had not yet come, otherwise crossing the roof would be suicide.
Outside, the low clouds were illuminated dull orange by the lights of Kingshaven. Something could be seen silhouetted against them, tall, thin and vertical. Flint called himself an atheist, but thanked God for idle builders. They had all forgotten the scaffolding.
With smoke pouring from the ground-floor windows below, Tyrone clambered out into the night. Flint gripped his arm, whilst the student called out progress reports. The first four feet were the worst, the slates greasy with moss. Squirming on to his stomach, Tyrone found a footing on the scaffolding, then shouted he was safe. Vikki followed next, cursing and blaspheming all the way. Flint went last. For a moment he felt confident, then slipped.
Two seconds were lost from his life in sheer terror, then his leg contacted a scaffolding pole and his hand grabbed at the gutter. He came to rest; panting, wishing he had stuck to theoretical archaeology.
All the ladders had been removed, but Flint had seen enough Batman serials as a child to know how to swing and slide down metal poles. Two minutes of terrified, arm-wrenching exhilaration followed before his feet kissed tarmac. Brushing rust off his palms, trembling legs at last on Mother Earth, he staggered back out of the smoke.
‘You okay, Vikki?’
Vikki was in the centre of the car park, bent double and coughing away the smoke.
‘Tyrone?’
‘All right! Let’s get the bastard!’ Tyrone betrayed a killer instinct, grabbing at a short length of discarded scaffolding pole and making for the open back door.
Only the north wing was fully ablaze. Smoke wafted along the ground floor and swirled around the porter’s desk. A figure moved around in the smoke, wafting it away, knocking over a heap of erasers and plastic dinosaurs. It staggered towards Tyrone, the student retreating into the yard, pole raised as a baseball bat.
Flint grabbed at the raised arm. ‘Hang on, that’s George!’
George was helped out. In a state of shock the four sat on a bench in the rose garden, amidst a growing chaos of police and firemen. George had met little response at the police station and had lacked the conviction to push himself. Too late, with the museum
ablaze, the police had taken notice, dispatching squad cars in all directions to hunt for Plant. Hurried statements were taken, a paramedic fussed around, then George went home to see his wife. The other three escaped to the sanctuary of the Masons Arms. Nerves needed steadying.
‘Two pints ESB, two double whiskies, and Vikki?’
‘G and T, biggish,’ she said with a touch of exhaustion in her voice.
Vikki paid. She stood picking ash from her hair as the barman loaded up the tray. A seat was easy to find, with everyone else being out on the pavement watching the fire. Sitting down, Vikki took her G and T and stared into the distance. For a moment Flint thought he knew what she was thinking. Like him, she would feel the terror of an escape from death. Like him, she would be shocked by the destruction of the museum; even its second-rate collection deserved a better fate. Like him, she would be thinking of Lucy, doomed by a relationship with a madman.
Vikki still looked pensive. She turned to him, her expression suddenly brightening. ‘Bloody good story, eh?’
He had misjudged her. Vikki downed her drink in one, drew out a notepad, clicked her biro into action and began to compose.
Chapter 11
He had been a hunted animal since Imbolc, since the terrible night on the hillside, but the status of fugitive had made little difference to Piers Plant’s behaviour. In the small hours of the morning, Rowan stopped her white van by the little cottage they used to rent, the one which had been the first scene in the tragedy. It was still fully dark and no lights showed through the cottage windows. Perhaps it had not been let that week.
‘I wish you could have seen my little room,’ Oak said to Rowan.
‘I wish you had shown it to me, but that was reserved for your special one, wasn’t it?’
‘It was. Now everything is gone.’
‘The radio made it sound very bad. None of this need have happened if you had told me where you were hiding.’
‘But you guessed.’
‘I worked it out, just like our enemies worked it out.’
‘Everything is gone,’ he repeated. ‘If only my spell had worked, if they had been trapped just by chance, we would be free.’
Spells again, she noted with displeasure. The fire had almost driven him beyond the edge, but she hoped she had pulled him back again. Rowan tried to lighten his air of terminal gloom, by patting him on the knee. He gripped her hand with both his and she could sense he was looking straight at her.
‘Was it necessary?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied. Oh yes, it had been necessary, only the timing had been awry.
He suddenly snapped out of his whimpering state and into that alarming voice he reserved for dangerous decisions. ‘I’m going now.’
Oak had already taken the torch and begun to open the door.
‘You’re going to do it again!’ she hissed, hanging on to the sleeve of his cardigan. ‘Oak, they will find you, you’re not invisible!’
He pulled himself free and flashed his torch down the track to where he had left his car concealed. ‘He said we should tell everyone as little as possible.’
‘But this is me.’
‘Yes,’ he became wistful, ‘you once said you were my sister, my wife and my mother.’
‘And so I am, so tell me.’
‘You might tell Him. The fire was his fault, you know. Because of Him, I’ve lost everything.’
‘Don’t be silly, Oak, and listen to me. You’re not well; behave like this and they will find you. Let me hide you.’
‘No.’
She could not be defeated by one of his random peaks of confidence.
‘Lugnasadh, I’ll be ready by Lugnasadh. I’ll bring the sacrifice too,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Rowan managed a false smile into his torchlight, ‘I’ll collect you. I know where you’re going.’
‘You do?’
She told him and he seemed injured by his lack of cunning.
‘Rowan, you read my mind.’
‘I can bring you things. From time to time.’
A light showed between the cottage curtains.
‘Hurry, go now! Be careful.’
He ran away down the track, his torch waving to and fro. A face came to the window of the cottage, so she pulled the door closed and started the engine. Brother, husband, prodigal son, dear Oak gave her no confidence whatsoever. The wolves were closing in and only she could keep them from hurting the one she most loved.
*
Tyrone slept solidly on Vikki’s sofa, but in the half-decorated back bedroom Flint rolled through a restless night. The adventure in the museum could have had so many different endings, most of them tragic. When he slipped into a dream, he was thrust into one of Lucy’s infernal fantasy realms, with a dragon about to reduce his companions to smouldering crisps. He awoke to sensations of fear and guilt, knowing how stupid it had been to bungle around the museum as if on a rag stunt. The game had turned nasty, very, and any hope he held of finding Lucy alive was gone.
Saturday was spent in the smoked-glass-fronted low-rise police station which served the Darkewater Valley. Junior officers went through the routine paperwork, after which Flint was treated to the privilege of a one-to-one interview with Chief Inspector Douglas. Douglas was a heavy man, who would have only just made the height limit when he joined the force. His round face had a look of worried affability. Flint was reminded of one of his own uncles.
The office, with its one plate-glass window and view of distant council flats, was depressing in its functionalism. Flint retold the story, completely failing to amuse the policeman.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor Flint, but we have no room for amateur detectives in this valley.’
Douglas’ balding crown showed a recent case of sunburn. Goblin-like, he stretched his long arms across his desk. It was clear he distrusted the lecturer.
Flint tried to be breezy, which was a mistake. ‘We were just following a logical hunch.’
‘If you had any information, the police should have been the first to know.’
‘You wouldn’t have done anything – you haven’t done anything to find Lucy so far.’
A finger jabbed across the desk blotter. ‘I don’t need to be told my job by some intellectual snooper.’ Douglas paused. ‘Hey, look, do they call you Jeff?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘Jeff, look. We have missing persons reported every day. Lucy Gray didn’t even go missing in this locality.’
‘Yes she did!’
Douglas continued to speak calmly. ‘So you say. If you had given us the facts, we could have done something and last night would not have happened.’
Flint shook his head; protesting against this injustice would make no impression. Black was white, all of a sudden. ‘You can have all the facts you want.’
‘I’m all ears.’ Douglas leaned back again
Flint sighed. ‘You’ve read the newspaper stories about the links between Plant and Lucy.’
‘Yes, I thought them far-fetched.’
‘Melodramatic, yes, but the basic facts are okay. I could send you photocopies of what I have. I did that before, but you probably chucked them away.’
‘Let’s try to be constructive, shall we?’
‘Well, I’m telling you there is some pretty odd occult activity taking place and you’re not believing me.’
Douglas nodded. ‘Fine, look, I’ll believe there was some sort of jiggery pokery going on, but we have to be very careful about screaming ‘Satanism’, Jeff, it upsets people. If we say that Piers Plant and this girl had a kinky sex life, people will be a whole lot happier.’
The idea was distasteful to Flint. ‘The man has burned down his own museum, trying to cook us in the process. It’s cast-iron proof that he’s a psychopath.’
‘So you think Piers Plant has killed Lucy Gray?’
‘Me and everyone else with an IQ of 50 or greater.’ Flint allowed irritation to slip through again.
‘Being hostile won’t h
elp us.’ Douglas’ unflappability showed signs that he’d recently been on some training course.
‘Okay. Will you try to find him?’
‘Of course.’
‘No more cock-ups?’
‘Cock ups?’
‘Plant got away from a burning building in the middle of a built-up area when hundreds of witnesses were watching. When your people finally sauntered up, they still couldn’t find a madman on foot, who only had five minutes’ lead.’
‘You can get a long way in five minutes in the dark.’
‘Someone must have helped him get away, then. Have you arrested his mother? She was supplying him with food.’
‘You forget that Mr Plant wasn’t a suspect at that time. She committed no crime.’
Flint nodded sullenly. ‘Anything else you know that I don’t?’
Douglas shook his head. ‘Do me a favour, Jeff, no more Agatha Christie. No more snooping, no more midnight dramas, or someone is going to get hurt.’
‘Someone already has.’
*
A black cloud of depression followed Flint back to London. The museum fire was not his first narrow brush with death, but without doubt, it was the nastiest. His hands trembled as he tried to read Vikki’s Saturday evening paper, due to delayed shock or the onset of post-traumatic stress disorder. He found Vikki’s line that Plant ‘disappeared as if by magic’ in poor taste.
Back on his quiet, peaceful, restful houseboat he awarded himself two days off sick. He lay on his bed and ran through his Dylan LP collection, humming along, trying to forget everything that had happened. What he needed was a conference, preferably abroad, somewhere with good restaurants and fine wines. What he needed was a woman by his side to unpick the knots in his soul and to care for in the quiet hours. What he might have to settle for was a month excavating in the Hertfordshire hills.
Cycling to college again, he was aware of the irrelevance of archaeology. It bore no relation to the vicious, nasty modern world, and little relation to the vicious, nasty ancient world either. Who truly cared what (if anything) happened in the third century?
