by Jason Foss
‘Tell ground control.’
‘You’re a prat, Tyrone,’ his passenger commented.
‘Just do it, or get out and walk back.’
‘I could have gone to the Halloween disco.’
‘Just dial.’
Tyrone saw the Land Rover fleetingly as they passed the lay-by at fifty-five. Behind them, headlights sprang to life as Flint made to join the chase. The Allegro took the Durring bypass, then headed inland, away from Kingshaven. The Darkewater megaliths were ignored, the car turning onto minor roads beyond Potter Bramton. Sometimes, Tyrone could see lights in his mirror. Flint was too laid-back for this, the college Land Rover too knackered and abused to keep pace.
Suddenly, the Allegro was gone. As they breasted a hill, Tyrone snapped on his beam and had a clear road ahead of him. He stamped on his brakes, then began to reverse. In the dark lane and the thick night he could see nothing. He engaged first gear and trundled forward until he found a field gate, then performed a clumsy five-point turn. Slowly he made his way back up the hill, towards the approaching headlights.
‘That will be Flint,’ Tyrone said.
‘That way!’ Glyn had spotted a minor lane on the left and Tyrone skidded to another halt, almost colliding with an oncoming Range Rover. Both cars stopped dead at the junction. The Spitfire stalled.
Tyrone had been winding down the window to speak to Flint, but Flint was not the driver of the Range Rover. The man could be heard muttering ‘Fool’ as he made a wide turn around the back of Tyrone’s car then vanished up the lane.
‘Number?’ Tyrone asked.
‘Sorry.’
It was Tyrone’s turn to swear. The number plate had been out of angle and all he had seen was the circular sticker featuring a Red Setter in the rear window. He restarted the car to await Flint’s arrival.
Flint did not arrive. After ten minutes, they tried the mobile phone, then the walkie-talkie. Another car turned up the little-used lane, so Tyrone decided to follow it. He had no problem in following the car for mile after mile until it turned into a farm gateway and stopped. Tyrone pulled up at the side of the road in a state of complete demoralisation.
‘So much for Plan B,’ he said.
If Tyrone had consulted his OS map, he would have noticed a long, narrow valley terminating at a spring about five miles south of where he sat. If he had flicked through an antiquarian guide to the valley, he would have found Holywell Syke listed under sites of minor historical interest. Over the mouth of the spring is a large erratic boulder, reputed in local myth to be connected with the ancient Celtic ‘cult of source’.
In the seclusion of the hills, under the protection of a benign farmer, the covens gathered around the well. Anxieties of the summer could be forgotten, cares were released in worship of the Earth, before they huddled into the warmth of the barn.
Rowan had assembled three circles and, yes, The Protector had appeared in his horned guise and delivered a deep, reverential prophesy from The Book. The weather was damp and cold as Samhain often was, so the revellers soon put back their clothes and huddled within the barn, fired by the brew and animated by the prophesy. When the rites were over, they fell back into the straw, finding cosy niches to chat or simply to lie with friends.
‘Willow, it’s good to see you so happy.’ Rowan laid a gentle hand on Michelle’s black shawl. Michelle sat on a bale before one of the mobile heaters, drinking blackberry tea.
‘She’s got a new feller,’ Hawthorn said, with a knowing look.
‘Not one of us?’ Rowan was little concerned. Her people could live double lives, there were no rules.
‘He might be, one day. He’s very interested in the New Age, he even owned a copy of The Book for a while.’
Rowan blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘He advertised it, it was on a card in Walker’s bookshop...’
‘Did you mention tonight to him?’ Rowan’s tone switched to a stern interrogative.
‘No, why should I? I just rang him about the advert.’ Michelle began to tremble. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.’
‘Come with me a moment, could you?’ Rowan took Michelle by the arm and led her from the barn, out into the wet air of a new November. In the lee of the barn, Rowan released her.
‘I want you to tell me everything about him.’
Michelle was questioned closely and sharply. At first, she gave straight answers, confused by the interrogation. Then she became hesitant as Rowan pressed her.
‘A dealer in antiquities?’ Rowan said in her most cynical voice.
‘Yes.’
‘And rare books?’
‘Yes, what’s wrong with that?’
‘And he’s rich, and handsome?’
‘He’s okay.’
‘I bet he’s anything but okay.’
‘How do you know...’
‘Willow. Listen to me!’ Rowan bit her nails deep into Michelle’s arm. ‘People who hate us are out to destroy us. I want to know about this man. Who he is, where he lives, what he looks like, where he goes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he is lying. He cannot have a copy of The Book, believe me, he cannot. The Protector himself has told me.’
‘But he’s really nice...’ Michelle began to sob.
‘Grant Selby, great gods, what a name! He sounds too nice, Willow. Why on earth should someone like that take a fancy to you? You were a drunk, you took drugs, we took you in, we saved your soul and you go back to sleeping around like a common slut.’ Rowan knew she had the power to command answers. ‘You slept with him the first night, didn’t you?
‘Yes,’ came the sob.
‘And where is the sanctity of your body?’
‘I just want someone to care about me.’
Just for a moment, Rowan felt a shard of sympathy. She too had a fear of being unloved and growing old.
‘Do you know who your someone is? Doctor Jeffrey Flint, BSc, PhD, FSA, MIFA, thirty-one years old, born in Leeds. He’s five feet ten inches tall, eleven and a half stones, has straw-coloured hair, blue eyes, he’s clean shaven with red glasses.’
‘His glasses are gold.’
‘So he changes his glasses, you stupid bitch!’ Rowan struck out at Michelle, swiping the slap across her cheek. Leaving the girl in a hysterical huddle, she went back inside the barn.
Elm stood talking by the far wall, jogging the keys of his Allegro in his hand.
‘Take Willow home, she has betrayed us,’ Rowan said, quivering with rage.
He was a middle-aged, paunchy man who everyone in the Balls Pond Road thought was Jewish, like his ancestors. Elm missed the point of her thrust.
‘Do you know, Rowan, I had the oddest sensation tonight. I imagined I was being followed...’
Rowan suddenly remembered the idiot who had nearly rammed the Range Rover. ‘By a sports car with an RAF sign on the door?’
‘It was a sports car.’
Rowan had reached a stage of panic. She ran into the middle of the room and yelled for attention. The circles must break up at once.
*
The field and the barn were deserted by the time a mud-splashed Spitfire and a Land Rover reached the top of Holywell Syke. Flint, Tyrone and the six lads from AeroSoc had managed to make radio contact and rendezvous just after two o’clock. Using maps, guidebooks, research notes and logic, they had identified the sacred spring and driven there within half an hour.
Beside the gateway, the field had been churned into mud by a dozen or more vehicles. One at least had been a minibus with twin rear wheels. Damp and dispirited the group formed a skirmish line and advanced towards the erratic boulder, much as when field-walking on plough soil.
Tyrone came up to Flint and showed him his finds. Something glittered in the torchlight, the foil of a condom wrapper.
‘Looks like we missed the party,’ Flint said.
The hunt was abandoned and they drove in convoy back to Durring. One of the college lads said that he was
insured, so drove the Land Rover back to London. Flint went with Tyrone to Kingshaven, nodding off to sleep just as they reached the street where Vikki lived.
Vikki let them in, her eyes half-closed and her make-up incompletely removed. She invited them into the lounge and switched on the gas fire, before snuggling herself into one of her cheap armchairs and pulling the vermilion housecoat closer around her. Flint made them all coffee whilst Tyrone yawned through the story of their adventures.
‘You two really are the limit.’
She had spent four hours on the phone, ending after midnight when the replies had become too brusque. Flint handed her a coffee and she cradled the mug in her hands, ignoring the four empty cups which already sat by her chair. He took her list and looked down the names. Something over half the names had been eliminated by confused responses.
‘Could I have some toast, Vikki?’ Tyrone asked.
A finger pointed towards the kitchen. ‘The bread’s in the bread bin.’
Tyrone went to make toast, whilst Flint read out the names of those who had been out on Halloween.
‘Monica Clewes – Monica, where were you?... Barbara Faber... Leopold Gratz... Tim Hapgood... Michelle Kavanagh, obviously... Sebastian Leigh... R. Temple-Brooke...’
Tyrone responded to each name by shouting a qualification: ‘Fancied him... she was a favourite...’ and so on. He came back into the room, handing around toast. ‘We do have a car number plate and someone drives a Range Rover with a doggy in the window.’
‘The police could find out who owns the Allegro,’ Vikki said, without any of her usual buoyancy.
‘No,’ Flint said, ‘we’d be showing our hand. Having an orgy in a barn isn’t illegal. We just have to keep plugging away and hope for snow.’
‘Snow?’ asked Vikki, with tired confusion in her voice.
‘They say it’s going to be a cold winter,’ said Tyrone with undue enthusiasm.
‘When it snows, we can drag in the cops. Until then team, it’s softly softly.’
‘Well boys,’ Vikki stood up, ‘softly softly, I’m going to bed.’
Chapter 22
The Poet and Rowan drove back towards the coast in the Range Rover. Windscreen wipers sliced through the thin rain and his words cut through the darkness.
‘I did not like the hysterical scene, Rowan. Everyone was distressed, you know you distressed them?’
‘Yes.’ She kept her tone submissive.
‘Things should never have reached this state.’
‘No.’
Rowan looked out at the featureless night, wanting to say nothing.
‘Tell me what you fear,’ he said, patting her knee with his spare hand.
She thrilled to his touch, then told him what Willow had done.
‘I was never truly happy about Willow,’ The Poet said, with nonchalant dismissal. ‘She has a…’ he paused to choose his poetic insult, ‘base crudeness.’
‘Willow could say things to hurt you. We can’t have her at any more meetings. She might have been followed tonight, she might have told Flint everything.’
‘So, what does it matter?’
‘Think of the embarrassment. He’ll whip up a story and that bitch reporter will magnify it and you will be made to look ridiculous.’
‘Can’t Willow just…’ he paused, ‘go away?’
‘Like Hazel?’ Rowan managed to whisper the suggestion.
Poetry was lacking from the situation, so she was not surprised when he refused to answer.
‘Have you spoken with your people?’ she began again.
‘No, but I must.’
Yes! she screamed within herself, he must and soon!
‘You could perhaps have a word with Elm and the others in London,’ The Poet suggested, ‘we can’t let one stupid girl spoil things, can we?’
‘No.’ She held the hand that was resting on her knee.
‘This academic will get bored one day, you just see,’ The Poet said.
The Range Rover was approaching street lights, with the driver punctuating the quiet with pronouncements at intervals. ‘Yes, I’ll speak to a few people, I’ll see what can be done. Now you’d better go.’
He pulled up to the side of the road in the lifeless town.
‘I’d better go,’ Rowan echoed. ‘One day, can we be together and not hide our feelings or our beliefs?’
‘You had better go.’
*
Morning came unwelcome for everyone involved in the muddy fiasco at Holywell Syke. Vikki had already gone to work, late and bleary-eyed, when Flint awoke at eleven. He cleaned the mud off his clothing in her bathroom, which like every other room in the house was incompletely decorated. Tyrone was still dozing on the sofa, showing no sign of moving, so Flint dropped a note by the toaster and let himself out.
He had decided to walk the half mile into the centre of Kingshaven to find breakfast (or lunch). His chin bristled with unshaven whiskers, but he felt oddly fresh after the night’s excitement. It had been a near-miss and only bad luck had prevented a breakthrough.
Walking along High Street, he turned into The Passage and pushed open the rainforest-green door of Naturella Wholefood Market. Monica was serving red lentils to a hairy young customer, but she recognised Flint immediately the door tinkled and waved one spare finger. Flint waited until the customer had picked up his bundle of recycled carrier bags and left the shop.
‘Hi there.’
‘Jeff, how are you?’ Monica asked in a voice full of empathy for his dishevelled state.
‘Tired and scruffy. We were out on a witch hunt last night, but it was more of a wild geese hunt in the end.’
‘I thought you were too old for Halloween games.’
‘Do you close for lunch?’
‘I can – it’s one of the joys of being self-employed.’
She turned the ‘closed for lunch’ sign and took off her unbleached linen apron. Flint escorted her across the road to Auntie Joyce’s Tea Shoppe.
‘Do you come here often?’ he asked as she sat down in one of the slender dark wood chairs.
‘No, it’s for tourists; how often do you go to Madame Tussauds?’
‘Good point.’
‘It’s very expensive, and I have three times the range of teas at home.’
‘But have you tried the chocolate fudge cake?’ Flint purred over the menu. ‘I’d kill for chocolate cake.’
Tea and cake arrived in good time whilst he went through an edited version of what had transpired during the night. He decided against mentioning Michelle’s part in the affair. The question ‘Who’s this Michelle?’ could wreck a fragile friendship.
‘So have you any joy for me?’ Flint asked.
‘Oh we always talk about the same thing,’ Monica said with a hint of depression in her voice, ‘do you only want me for my information?’
‘No, no, sorry.’ He spoke around an unwise mouthful of cake. ‘Look, Monica, I’ve wrecked one relationship this year blathering on about my investigation, so I’ll forget it. We’ll talk politics, or the weather.’
She reached across a hand to touch his. ‘Silly! I just worry that you are becoming obsessed.’
‘Sorry, I’m getting close to the truth, but I’m using up friends fast. One of my contacts in London has been threatened and won’t have anything more to do with me. I tried to ring old George at the museum, but he’s been scared off. I had six willing students helping me last night, now they’re totally pigged off too. So, apologies, but you’re one of my last hopes.’
Monica looked at the table, saying nothing.
‘Monica? Hello?’
She looked up. ‘There’s something I didn’t want to tell you.’
Oh no, he thought, here comes the push-off line.
‘Last night,’ she continued, ‘I had a strange phone call.’
‘That would have been Vikki, I’m sorry.’
But Vikki had said Monica had been out, he realised. How reliable had Vikki’s phone s
urvey been?
‘No, it was a man, a horrid heavy-breather,’ Monica continued, ‘he told me what would happen if I helped you anymore.’
‘Monica.’ He gripped the hands she had offered him.
‘He’s going to come along at three in the morning and set fire to my shop, with me inside.’
‘Did you tell the police?’
Monica stifled a sniff. ‘What can they do against this madman? I just went to bed and pulled up the sheets.’
Flint sat back, released her hands and drummed impatient knuckles on the table. ‘Can you see why I want to stop him?’
‘Can’t you just leave him alone? The police will get him sooner or later, they always do with madmen.’
He had lost another ally, another friend and another avenue of information. ‘You have to do what you think is right.’
‘I’m sorry, but after what you’ve told me, I’m scared. I can’t come to night school tonight.’
‘Well I’m going to ring in sick, anyway.’
‘I probably won’t come any more; but once this is over, I’d like to see you again.’
‘Fine, it will be nice to see you.’
‘That’s if you’re still interested in an old maid.’
‘And if you’re still interested in an old hippy.’
Her anxious wrinkles flattened into a smile. ‘Do take care.’
Flint returned to London with Tyrone and took time off to think and recover. He dropped by on the Friday for a lecture and a meeting, was scowled at by Professor Grant, then prepared himself for another evening with Michelle. He watched the night from the window of the London bus, Michelle occupying his thoughts.
For three weeks he had followed Che Guevara’s maxim: huddle as close to the enemy as possible. Too close for them to know they were being observed, too like them to be distinguished as hostile.
For three weeks he had dated Michelle as often as possible, been intimate as often as possible. He had spent liberally from Barbara’s funds, making the role of the suave Grant Selby easy to play. What a name – why had he chosen such a daft name? Flint distracted himself by drawing circles on the misting windows, guilty ideals fighting practical realism.
