‘Jane, for heaven’s sake. This is England. It’s not Chicago on the TV . . .’
‘So what are they going to do with us?’ Timothy was now sitting on the top stair, nursing his long black gun with the casual ease of a soldier in Vietnam. ‘If they let us go, they know we’ll only go to the police. And they’ll come and dig the body up and . . .’ He shrugged. ‘They either have to shut our mouths or . . .’ He sounded so coolly excited; as if he were watching a hard-fought football match.
‘I don’t understand any of it,’ said Rose, helplessly.
‘Oh, I do,’ said Timothy. ‘That man who cut you on the forehead. That’s because he thought you were a witch. Or he was frightened you might be. He was making sure. He cut you on your forehead to take your witchly powers away. They did that to the witch in Darkness at Nunmere on the TV. If you cut a witch above her windpipe, you take all her powers away . . .’
‘That’s right, Mum,’ said Jane. ‘I saw it too.’
‘But . . .’ Rose’s voice rose to a wail. ‘I don’t see any of it. I don’t see why they killed Sepp Yaxley in the first place. He was their Cunning Man. They paid him to do things . . .’
‘Show her that account book,’ said Timothy. He got up from where he was sitting, and she heard him moving softly from room to room upstairs, on the look-out.
Jane came back with the account book, open at the last page. ‘See,’ she said. ‘He must have got across them. They turned against him.’
There were only three items on the last page.
To treating Miss B.R. for the Old Johnnie Five pounds
To rail fare to Norwich for the inquest on B.R. Four pounds
To rail fare to Norwich to hear the verdict Four pounds
Jane said softly, ‘They must have blamed him for her death. Nobody came to see him after that. Nobody paid him anything.’
Rose looked at the last date. It was the 25th of May, 1981.
‘But . . . but . . .’ said poor Rose.
‘Oh, don’t tell us this is England, Mum. Or the twentieth century or anything. The last Cunning Man was only done in in 1945. He was a farmworker in the Cotswolds. They found him dead with a pitchfork through him. We saw it on a programme about Fabian of the Yard – you know, the famous Flying Squad detective. Fabian investigated it for years – he even went back to the village dozens of times after he retired. He knew it was a ritual killing – there was no other motive. He always believed it was witchcraft. But he never got anywhere. He reckoned the whole village was in the murder together – that they appointed one man to do the killing, and they weren’t saying anything. You can’t get anywhere if a whole village is against you.’
It was the matter-of-fact way she said it that chilled Rose. She wished profoundly that she’d taken more care in controlling what they watched on TV. But when they both had portables in their own rooms . . .
Timothy had resumed his seat at the top of the stairs. He said, a little pityingly Rose thought, ‘How did they catch you, Mum? Had they duffed in the car?’
Rose nodded mutely.
‘And duffed in the phone-box?’
She nodded again.
‘What about Miss Yaxley?’
Humbly, she told him. It was very strange, having your son boss you about with such certainty. He was suddenly very like Philip; they were both suddenly very like Philip. Well, it’s better than being soft and helpless like me, she thought. And hopelessly wished Philip were here.
‘Point is, what happens now?’ said Timothy. ‘I don’t reckon they’ll try anything before dark. They know what they’ll get.’
‘You wouldn’t shoot them in the face, would you, Tim?’
‘Damn right I would. They’re going to kill us.’
‘Oh, that’s silly. How could they? Daddy knows where we are. Miss Yaxley knows we’re here. The minister of Cley knows we’re here. They’d never get away with it. Daddy would raise heaven and earth. The police wouldn’t rest. And if they found our bodies, or even us just missing . . .’
‘That’s what you think! We’ve worked out one perfect way they could do it already. Tie us up in bed upstairs, and set fire to the whole cottage. With all these oil-lamps and a cat roving the house . . . whole families die in accidental fires every week. You see it on the local TV. It doesn’t even make the main news headlines.’
‘But the police would find the ropes tying us . . .’
‘They’d be lucky to find anything of us. How could they even get a fire-engine up this path? And where would it come from? Cromer? Sheringham? Place would be a pile of smouldering ashes by the time they even got here. I mean, they wouldn’t even know the house was burning, unless they saw the light in the sky from Cley. And this is the time they burn the stubble anyway. I can see one field of stubble burning from here. Between us and Cley.’
Poor Rose could find nothing to say.
‘Point is,’ said Timothy, ‘we’ve got to save ourselves. I can hold them off till dark, because I’ve scared them now. They’ll be looking at that old bastard’s hand, and wondering what it’s like having the same hole in your face. But after dark, one petrol-bomb through a downstairs window . . .’
‘Can’t we make a run for it?’ asked Jane.
‘They’re watching the house. Pretending to be cutting the hedges. I can see five of them. They’re all round . . .’
This just isn’t happening, thought Rose wildly.
‘One of us might get away, around dusk,’ said Tim thoughtfully. ‘If one of us got away, they wouldn’t dare harm the others. Not unless the one that got away was caught. Where’s the nearest help, Mum, d’you think?’
‘The minister,’ said Rose weakly. ‘The minister at Cley. He knows . . . most of it, anyway. He wanted to help us get out this morning. He offered . . .’
‘Pity you didn’t take his advice,’ said Timothy, mercilessly.
‘Or the police,’ said Rose.
‘They’ll be keeping an eye on the police-station,’ said Timothy. ‘On the whole Cley road. You’ll have to work across the fields, Jane. Or go down to the shore and along the beach. They might even send someone down to the beach. Keep to the hedgerows, that’s best.’
‘Jane can’t go!’ said Rose desperately.
‘Well I can’t go,’ said Tim. ‘Jane’s useless with the pistol. Can’t hit anything.’ Then he added, ‘And you’re too big, Mum.’ Then he added, in a kinder voice, ‘Besides, you’ve got to stay and talk to them, if they come back.’
It began to rain towards dusk. Great clouds swept in over the sea, and the dusk began to come terribly quickly. Rose just sat, without volition, without belief. All the life seemed to have run out of her.
She started out of a cold doze, as Timothy spoke to her. Kindly. Reassuringly. Just like Philip. She looked at her son. He looked tense, but in a way he was loving it. She remembered an army colonel talking on the radio once. Young men make the best soldiers, he had said. Eighteen-year-olds, even sixteen-year-olds, make the best killers. They have no imagination; they do not understand what it is to inflict or suffer pain and death. How about thirteen-year-olds? she thought wildly. She had read of thirteen-year-olds committing murder. In America even ten- or eleven-year-olds. With guns. It was all a video game to them, at that age.
Mature people make the worst killers, the colonel had said. Because they can empathize with pain. My God, she thought, I am a useless quivering mass of empathy.
‘Got a little job for you, Mum. Now listen! All I want is for you to go down to the outhouse. Use it, if you like. You must be bursting by now. But the thing is, when you come out, forget to close the outhouse door. Just leave it open, about a foot or so. Right? Now can you remember that? Don’t close the door afterwards. Just leave it open, carelessly. Open, right?’
Wearily, she nodded. There seemed no harm in leaving an outhouse door open.
‘Off you go, then!’ He hauled her out of her chair and gave her a helpful push towards the door.
<
br /> ‘Put your anorak hood up,’ said Tim. ‘It’s raining. You’ll get your hair wet.’
Without thought, she let him push it up for her; he patted her hair back in place with affection, and let her pass.
It seemed a long lonely walk to the outhouse. She glanced about, nervously. She spotted one man cutting a hedge at a distance. He straightened up as she emerged. Watched her all the way to the outhouse door. It was strangely humiliating. She pulled the door hard shut, and bolted it on the inside.
The need to go came on excruciatingly; she only just got her jeans down in time. Even her body felt a hostile stranger.
Afterwards, she nearly shut the door behind her. From sheer habit. It was only the sight of Tim’s anxious face and gesturing hand in the kitchen window that reminded her in time.
She walked back to the garden, in a cold sweat. Couldn’t she do anything right, even something as simple as leaving an outhouse door open?
‘Well done,’ said Tim warmly. ‘Good old Mum.’ He gave her a comforting kiss, and she nearly wept.
He had stopped her from closing the back door either. And she noticed he was now wearing his dark sweater and dark trousers, and had soot smeared across his face.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘You start lighting the oil-lamps. Keep them as near the windows as possible. Kitchen first. That’ll give the bastards something to watch.’
She went to the kitchen windowsill where the oil-lamps were kept. Began taking off shades and chimneys, with quivering hands. Then struck a match and went along the row, lighting them one after the other.
‘Is that right?’ she asked humbly.
But her son was no longer there. Startled, she looked around. ‘Tim?’
‘Shush,’ said Jane. ‘He’s wriggling down the hedge. Don’t look, Mum, for hell’s sake.’ Then she added, ‘Good, he’s made it.’
‘What’s he doing?’ Rose felt her panic rise again.
‘You know the outhouse,’ said Jane. ‘Well, when Mr. Gotobed came to see to us, he didn’t carry it out through the garden, where it might offend us. He took it out of the outhouse through a hatch in the back wall. Which leads straight out into the next field. If Tim can get the hatch open, one of us can get out that way. Into the hedge.’
Jane was putting on Tim’s red anorak now, over the top of her own blue one. Zipping it up, pulling up the hood so it hid her face completely.
She looked out of the dimming window.
‘There’s Tim signalling. Time to go. Bye-bye, Mum. Love you.’
And then she was strolling down the garden, giving nervous looks around, in Tim’s anorak.
The outhouse door closed behind her.
Rose waited for she knew not what. Then a figure in a red anorak was coming up the path, head down and hood up against the rain.
‘Jane?’
The door closed behind the figure. The hood was pushed back, and the grinning face of Tim appeared.
‘She’s away through the hatch, Mum. Into the hedge and on her way. It’ll take her a couple of hours, but they won’t get her now. It’s getting dark, and she’s the best hider I know. I blacked her face and closed the hatch, so they won’t spot anything. All we have to do now is wait.’
Eleven
They waited till it was very nearly dark. Half an hour had passed, without a sign or shout from the outside. Jane must be well away by this time. Heading for the minister, the police, civilisation. It was a warming thought, and she hugged it to herself. Whatever happened through this dreadful night, her daughter was safe.
She was at the upstairs back window, keeping watch, while Tim kept watch at the front. There was still a little pink light in the sky to the west; the last of day. The last of any day she might ever see. She shivered and hugged her anorak round her; but she still could not quite make herself believe that anybody was going to kill anybody. Oddly it was still the villagers’ power to kill she doubted. Not Tim’s. Tim was lost, quietly exalted in some dream of war. Every upstairs window was wide open. There was a little neat shining row of air-pistol slugs arranged along every windowsill in the house. Carefully spaced an inch apart, for speedy picking up. All the movies had come home to Tim. Dirty Harry, Lethal Weapon II, Full Metal Jacket, Rambo, The Exterminator. Barred from the cinema, forbidden them at home, Tim had watched them all at friends’ houses. Over and over. They had started their graduation in killing a year early . . .
‘Mum?’ Tim’s voice was low and urgent, but not at all panicky. ‘Mum, they’re coming. About four of them. Come and hold the torch for me. Don’t switch it on till they’re really close, and then let them have it full in the face. It’ll blind them.’
She took the big torch from him; aware that her hands were shaking, and that his hand was merely . . . tensed, thrumming.
‘Don’t stand right in the window, Mum!’ Mild exasperation had crept into his tone. ‘Stand to one side, so they can’t see you.’ He himself was standing next to the window, back to the wall, gun pointing upwards gracefully, professionally. How often had she seen that pose on TV? Cagney and Lacey, Dempsey and Makepiece, Miami Vice . . . It was more familiar than the England team lining up in a defensive wall for a free kick, more familiar than Graham Gooch adjusting his helmet . . .
She heard the footsteps crunching up the path from the sea; crunching on the old bricks by the gate.
‘Right, Mum, now.’
She flicked on the torch. In its white glare, she saw every detail of Mr. Gotobed’s laid hedge, the straggling rose-trees that he had freed from the weeds, so long ago. Four men in old shabby coats with white faces, and hands reaching up to shield their eyes from the light . . .
‘That’s far enough,’ shouted Tim. His voice rose, not with hysteria. But with pressure; like a pressure-gauge mounting in some disaster movie. He was very close to firing . . .
The men stopped abruptly; perhaps they could hear the tone in his voice too. Then the one with the spectacles, the one with the bandaged hand, called out, ‘Missus, we got your daughter, hare.’
And Jane was pushed forward from the back. It was quite clearly Jane. Her blue anorak was very dirty; and she looked pretty scared.
‘She shouldn’t be wandering around the country after dark,’ said another of the men.
And somebody snickered. It was a horrible sound, that filled Rose with despair.
‘We don’t want to do her no harm,’ said the man in the spectacles. ‘Just hurry up and open that door, so she can come on in.’
Rose saw they were keeping a very tight grip on her, one on either side.
‘C’mon, missus, open that door . . .’
What else was there to do?
And then she saw a movement on the ground, nearer the house. A small cautious furtive movement, that wavered at the edge of her flicking torchlight.
And then the cat stepped into the circle of light.
Yaxley’s cat.
It walked up to the men, to within two yards of them.
It inspected them, with a certain curiosity, a pricking of its dark ears.
They saw it. At least someone did.
‘That’s Sepp’s cat,’ said someone uneasily. The men seemed to edge a little closer to each other.
The cat looked at one face after another. It seemed to take its time. One, two, three.
And then, before Rose could blink, it launched itself at the fourth face; the man with the spectacles. There was a wild scream.
‘My eyes. Gerrit off, gerrit off.’
There was a milling mass of arms around the cat. And at the same moment, Jane broke free and ran off round the house.
‘Back door, Mum, back door, quick,’ shouted Tim.
Behind her, as she ran downstairs, she heard the hissing chug of Tim’s air-pistol and a man shouting, ‘Christ, my face. Christ, my face.’
Then the back door was open and bolted again, and Rose’s sobbing daughter was in her arms.
And immediately, Tim was yelling for them upstairs.
/> But when they got there and shone the torch, the garden was empty. But for the stretched-out body of Yaxley’s cat. And a pair of spectacles, that glinted. But only one lens glinted. The other had some stuff on it.
Tim did a careful round of the other windows. ‘Put out the oil-lamps downstairs, Mum.’ he called. ‘We don’t want to make their job easy for them.’
Rose did as she was told and returned. Jane had stopped crying already.
‘They caught me on the beach,’ she said, bitterly. ‘Only I got fed up with crawling through hedges . . .’
‘Stupid nerd,’ said Timothy. ‘You might have known. I warned you.’
‘You try crawling through hedges . . .’
Rose comforted herself that nothing serious could have happened to Jane. She looked sadly down at the body of the cat.
‘It knew,’ said Timothy.
‘Knew what?’
‘Knew who the real murderer was. It just looked at the other three, then went for him. The cat must have seen it all happen. It remembered. Cats never forget anything. Well, it had its revenge. Nearly clawed his face to bits. I bet he hasn’t got much to look out of now . . .’
‘Timothy!’ From somewhere, Rose still had the power to be shocked.
Tim shrugged, and pretended to draw a bead at the old garden gate. ‘They’ll be a bit sorry for themselves for a while now. They were flailing at the cat with their billhooks and hitting each other. And I hit one of them in the cheek, I think. That’ll have knocked a few teeth out. And with what the cat did . . . they won’t be back for half an hour, I reckon.’ He sighed. ‘But they’ll have the young blokes with them, the next time.’
They did.
They were standing in huddles in the lane, behind the hedge. They were standing in huddles all round the back garden. The sound of their excited muttering, their arguments and plans came up like the sound of a disturbed hive of bees.
Tim had done his best. Getting Jane to suddenly shine the torch on a bit of hedge, from one window after another, making them duck before the air-pistol chugged and another slug went whining away.
Spectral Shadows Page 31
