by Lara Dearman
Jenny nodded. ‘I think whoever is doing this has a knowledge of folklore,’ she said. ‘There’s the mark he’s putting on them, the scarecrows, the places he’s leaving them.’ She turned the book over and opened it from the back, looking at the index. ‘Look at this, Le Table Des Pions, Le Guet – they’re both mentioned in here. Maybe he even knows this book.’
‘You need to speak to Horace.’ Elliot said. He wandered over to the pile of back copies of the News Jenny had printed off from the library archives and started flicking through them.
‘Who?’
‘Horace Gallienne from La Société Guernesaise. I interviewed him when he did those Haunted Guernsey walks. He knows all about this stuff. I warn you, though, he’s a complete nut job.’
Jenny sighed. ‘I’m starting to think it’s the sane people who are the exception around here.’
* * *
Horace Gallienne lived in a large Edwardian house on Les Abreveurs Lane in St Sampsons. She parked at the side of the narrow road, in front of the rectangular stone trough it was named after. In days gone by the island’s abreveurs had watered cattle herds as they were moved through the lanes to fresh pasture. Water bubbled into this one from an underground spring below, breaking the surface with gentle ripples, flowing over the moss-covered sides and on to a cobbled, shallow basin where it drained back into the earth. When she was little, Charlie would have given her a penny to throw in, told her to make a wish.
She let herself into the front garden through a low wooden gate. On the hedge next to it a wooden crate stood on one side, displaying its contents to the street. A handwritten sign attached read, POTS 50P EGGS £1. Clear plastic bags of earth-caked potatoes filled one side of the box. A crumpled one-pound note poked out of a rusty cash tin, which was screwed to the crate and secured with a broken padlock. A hedge veg stall. They were dotted all over the island, selling flowers or fruit and vegetables, even pots of jam or chutney, jars of pickles. Whatever was growing in the garden or the greenhouse and couldn’t be eaten by the family would be sold to neighbours and passers-by, who were trusted to leave payment in the tin, aptly known as an honesty box.
A fat orange hen emerged, head shuddering and muttering a low, nervous warble as it ran from the bushes at the side of the house and over the doorstep. Jenny knocked on the front door. Moments later, a scraping from above and then a hoarse, rasping voice.
‘Yes?’
She stepped back, looked upwards. A man leaned out over the sill of a small window under the eaves. He had a green scarf wrapped around his neck and wore large, thick-rimmed glasses. She was sorry to disturb him, she called up, but she was wondering if she might ask him some questions about local history and folklore?
The window slid shut, and a few minutes later the front door opened.
‘Sorry about that’ he said, ‘I’m right in the middle of something and I don’t want to come downstairs every time someone wants to know if I’ve got any more eggs. The chickens are done laying for the season. I meant to change the sign.’ He was a heavy-set man in his late sixties and his rotund frame filled the doorway. His large feet were bare, bright pink and soaking wet.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘Hmm? No, no. Well, I mean, yes, you are. But it’s not a problem. Please, come in.’ He smiled at her, the corners of his rheumy eyes wrinkling behind his glasses. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, I have a terrible cold.’
There was an underlying smell of must in the house, but it was masked with the faint, floral scent of plug-in air freshener and, Jenny thought, something else, something medicinal. Camphor perhaps, or tea tree oil. She followed him through a carpeted hallway to a sitting room, where the reason for the musty smell became apparent. Piles and piles of books were stacked against the walls, over the coffee table and beside the faded, floral sofas.
‘Sorry about the mess. I’m having a sort out. I started about five years ago and this is as far as I’ve got.’ He smiled. His face wrinkled and his brow shone with perspiration. ‘We could sit in my study, I suppose. It’s almost as bad, to be honest, but at least there’s a desk in there.’
She followed him up a narrow flight of stairs with creaking bannisters, to the first-floor landing where he opened a wooden door, which looked like it belonged to a built-in closet. Inside, more steps twisted upwards. She hesitated. He noticed.
‘Ha!’ He coughed and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘It’s all a bit Jane Eyre, isn’t it! I promise you, there’s no mad wife up there, just books mostly. Follow me!’ His footsteps were heavy as he climbed the steep stairs to the attic. ‘Hard going on the knees these days, all these stairs. That’s why I’m sorting out. Thinking of moving. Here we are.’ He held the door open for her.
It was surprisingly bright in the study, despite the low ceilings. The window he had called down from let in plenty of light and there was one on the opposite side of the room too, with a view out on to fields and greenhouses. There was a small door with a bolt across it in the corner of the room, the top edge sloping, like something out of Alice in Wonderland, Jenny thought. There were books everywhere up here and papers too, piles and piles of them on the thin carpet. No smell of must though, because another, pungent aroma filled the air. It was coming from a plastic washing-up bowl steaming under the desk.
Horace saw her looking. ‘It’s a natural cold remedy. Chinese. Hot mustard powder and eucalyptus. Draws the blood from the head to the feet and clears the airways. I suppose it stinks? Afraid I can’t smell a thing.’ He blew his nose as if to illustrate his point and then opened the window again, the old sash pulleys squeaking in protest. The desk was directly below it and the papers littering it lifted in the breeze. The opposite wall was fitted with shelves displaying framed prints and what looked to be Second World War objects; a helmet from the occupation and a gas mask, although not like any Jenny had seen before. The other two walls of the room were covered in black-and-white etchings, arranged unevenly and hanging at various skewed angles. Jenny was looking directly at a picture of a woman with a twisted, ugly face, covered in thick hair and boils, laughing and pointing at a painfully thin cow, its shoulder blades protruding, while a milkmaid pulled at its withered udders. Next to it, a picture of a burning pyre, three women, one obviously heavily pregnant cowering in front of it while an official-looking man read to a gathered crowd from a book.
‘They’re a bit macabre. That’s why I keep them up here.’ He pointed to the picture of the three women. ‘You know this story?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘A mother and two daughters burned at Tower Hill, just above Fountain Street. According to records made at the time, this young lady,’ he pointed to the pregnant woman, ‘Perotine Massey, gave birth in the flames. The baby was rescued but the bailiff ordered it be cast back into the fire. We did a re-enactment a few years ago for the Guernsey Historical Society, four hundred and fifty years after the event. It was terribly moving.’
‘People thought they were witches?’
He shook his head. ‘Protestants. Out of fashion at the time, sadly. This one’s a witch.’ He pointed at the women in the other picture. ‘Disgustingly ugly or terrifyingly beautiful depending on which particular piece of folklore you choose to believe. It was very common, of course, in rural communities, to blame women, usually older, isolated ladies, for failing crops or sick cattle.’ He turned to her. ‘Now, what can I help you with? You’re from the News, aren’t you? I’ve spoken to you lot before about history and traditions. For a piece you’re working on, is it?’
Yes, she said. She was interested in a few particular sites around the island. Pleinmont, Le Guet, Moulin Huet. Were they significant, she asked, as far as local folklore was concerned? Well, Horace said, it depends.
‘On what?’
‘On whether or not you want to meet with the Devil.’
He walked over to a picture, pointed at it: a huge, horned goat, standing on two cloven feet, surrounded by bea
utiful, naked women.
‘That’s the Devil at Le Guet. One of the many orgies he allegedly held with the loose women of the island there. The Fairy Ring at Pleinmont, of course, well-known meeting place for the Devil, witches and the like. And Moulin Huet – now that’s an interesting one, not a spot he was said to regularly frequent, but there’s a rock there with a peculiar marking on it.’
‘I know that story.’
‘You do? Excellent. It’s a good one, isn’t? There are plenty more like it too. There’s a rock at Rousse with an imprint in it, like a hoof mark. Le Pied du Boeuf, it’s called. Supposed to be where Satan leapt from after a confrontation with a mob of angry peasants. That’s what you’re writing about, is it? The Devil?’
Jenny hesitated. ‘The places, really. Their associations. But this is helpful. Thank you.’ She scribbled some notes.
‘Here, have a seat.’ He cleared some of the papers on the desk to one side. She recognised the patois written on the yellowed pages in a faded, scrawling hand, but could not understand it. Her Guernsey French was limited to the word for the snails she would find in the garden, little collymouchons, and her granny’s ‘cor demmie la!’ whenever anything out of the ordinary happened.
‘Spells,’ he said, standing beside her. He picked up one of the old pages. ‘Or rather, antidotes to spells. This one’s to counteract curses that kill livestock. It says one should cut the heart from an animal whose death has been caused and then place it on a plate and pierce it with nine thorns while saying the incantation.’ He pointed to some lines written in verse. ‘The heart is then to be put in a bag and hung in the chimney, before the whole process is repeated, each day, for nine days. No thorn must pierce the same place twice. Then one must burn the heart and the curse will be lifted. Not only that, but the witch who cast the spell shall be revealed in the flames and beg for mercy and forgiveness. Started as a hobby, all this witchcraft stuff, but I have to say I find it quite fascinating. I’m writing a book about it, Cursed Isle. Not what you’re here for, I know, but perhaps you could make a little mention of it in your article, eh? You scratch my back, and I’ll find some pictures for you, how about that?’ His laugh quickly turned into a cough. ‘This damn cold,’ he spluttered, before he got down on his knees and started sorting through the papers stacked underneath the shelves, pulling some out and laying them on the floor. The soles of his feet were soft and pink from sitting in the bowl of water, the flesh on his heels loose and wrinkled, and Jenny felt nauseous looking at them.
In the quiet that followed, Jenny heard a rustling and scratching. Not from Horace as he threw papers into various piles, but from the roof immediately above them, or perhaps behind the walls. Horace heard it too.
‘Damn rats,’ he said. ‘That’s another reason I’m moving. Caught one as big as a cat recently. There’s a nest. I’ve had pest control out more times than I can count, but they keep coming back.’
‘Do you have another room behind there?’ Jenny pointed to the door in the wall.
‘Hmm?’ Horace looked up. ‘Oh, that. No, leads to some storage space, right under the roof rafters. Only people who’ve been in there in the last thirty years are Rentokil.’ He laughed his hacking laugh again. ‘Here.’ He beckoned her over.
She knelt on the carpet next to him. A large black dog sitting in a country lane and a pretty young woman, The Devil tempts a seamstress, Talbots, written underneath. A shadowy bridge; Pont du Diable, St Sampson. And the last one, a photograph, a plate from a book – a white rock slashed with black. The Devil’s Claw. Moulin Huet.
Dead animals and pierced hearts and Devil worship and rats … The low attic ceiling suddenly felt lower and stifling and the heavy, cloying smell of mustard and eucalyptus burdened the air. She stood up and turned to Horace, to thank him and say goodbye. Looked again at the shelves, at the strange objects displayed on them.
Horace stood up next to her, rubbing his knees. ‘Another hobby of mine. I volunteer with Festung – have you heard of them?’ Jenny shook her head. ‘Wonderful group. We help to preserve and document the Nazi fortifications on the island. Lest we forget and all that. Most of what we’ve found goes to the Occupation Museum, but I’ve collected a few trinkets.’ He picked up the strangely shaped mask, two conical tubes attached to what looked like breathing apparatus and a canvas strap.
‘Bet you’ve never seen one of these before have you?’
Jenny shook her head. She’d seen a gas mask, she said, at the Occupation Museum, but not that shape. What was is for?
‘Horses!’ He sounded delighted. ‘Would you believe they had gas masks for their horses? In the depths of all that cruelty and violence. It was strategic, obviously, but it’s quite something, don’t you think? That they thought to save the horses.’
It was, Jenny agreed. Quite something.
‘And this, this is very special.’ He held out his hand. A bullet rolled around on his open palm. ‘Looks like an ordinary bullet, doesn’t it? But look.’ He pulled the tip off and showed her. Inside, a tightly rolled piece of paper. Horace tipped it out on to his hand. ‘A message. In code. A common way of passing notes around, apparently, but no less interesting for it, eh?’ His eyes shone. ‘You should write an article about this, you know. So much still to be discovered. We’ve never fully got to grips with it. The Occupation, I mean. Even now, all these years later, there’s so much shame associated with it, it’s like a dark cloud hanging over us all. Time we embraced it, I say. Time we remembered, before it’s too late.’
Jenny agreed. It was fascinating, she said. And he’d been so helpful, she couldn’t thank him enough.
‘I’m serious.’ He looked at her intently, pale blue eyes wet with cold and something else, not tears, surely? ‘There’ll be nobody left soon. You young people aren’t interested in history, in dead languages or folk stories. My generation heard stories from our parents. Yours maybe from your grandparents, but beyond you, there’s nobody. Perhaps you could write about that. When you’re finished dancing with the Devil.’
* * *
She struggled not to visibly gulp down the fresh, clean air as she left the house. She stopped at the hedge, light-headed, and realised she had not eaten lunch and it was mid-afternoon already. She picked up a bag of potatoes for Margaret, dropping the fifty pence into the tin and then, seeing a tarnished penny in her purse, walked over to the abreuvoir and tossed it in. She didn’t make a wish. She didn’t know what to wish for. And anyway, even as a kid, she’d known that a wish made on a water trough would not come true.
* * *
She sat at her desk in her incident room, as Elliot had insisted on calling it. She’d come straight home from Horace’s house, wanting peace and quiet and time to try to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t working out so well. A thudding and scraping from above and Margaret singing, her voice high-pitched and wavering as she shifted boxes, sorting out the loft, disturbed what little concentration Jenny could muster. She couldn’t shake off the smell of Horace’s foot soak, nor the strange, desperate look he’d had in his eyes as she’d left his house. She decided to take a leaf out of Margaret’s book and have a clear out.
She made one pile of papers for recycling, another for interviews, placing the notes she had made at Horace’s that afternoon on the top. Then she turned her attention to the News articles Elliot had been reading. He’d actually left them neater than he’d found them, but she tried putting them in some sort of order and then wondered if they weren’t for the recycling pile as there was nothing in them that had shed any light on anything. She wasn’t sure why she had printed them off at all. She took a few pages from an edition printed in the days following Elizabeth Mahy’s death and flicked through them. She smiled at the picture of a farmer in old-fashioned flat cap, displaying his prize-winning tomatoes, noted the difference in the way the articles were written back then, more formal English, much better grammar. Saw a small column at the bottom of page three. Drowned Girl’s Parents Plead for Witnesses, and
the reporter’s name, Brian Ozanne. The same Brian Ozanne, she was sure, who was now editor-in-chief of the Guernsey News and who had claimed, indignantly, to be too young to remember Elizabeth Mahy’s death. Could he really have forgotten something like that? Surely not. So why hadn’t he told her about it, or at least acknowledged that it had happened? She picked up her things. He’d be at work. As she got to the front door, she saw a shadow approaching behind the glass and opened it.
Elliot looked angry and exhausted, his hair a tousled mess, his top three shirt buttons undone. She had no time to say anything before he yelled at her.
‘Why aren’t you answering your fucking phone?’ There was a hint of the rage she had seen before on his face. She took a step backwards.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour.’ He seemed to make an effort to relax, taking a deep breath. Softer now. ‘I was worried.’
She reached into her bag, pulled her phone out. She had five missed calls from Elliot and three from Michael. ‘Shit. I put it on silent when I went to Horace’s. What’s happened?’
‘A girl’s gone missing. Lisa Bretel. She’s seventeen and her mum hasn’t seen her for three days. Guess what she looks like?’
Jenny’s shoulders slumped. ‘Blue eyes. Fair skin. Long blonde hair.’ He nodded.
‘DCI Gilbert has called a press conference. We need to be there.’ He held out his hand. She took it, followed him to his car, which was parked on the street with the engine running. A missing girl, not a dead one. That was something at least. She might be alive. Hidden somewhere, held captive. Jenny’s mind raced through all the places Lisa could be, settling on the image of a girl, alone and terrified, locked in a tiny black space with the scratching and rustling of rats all around her.
36
Michael
The main hall of the Vale Douzaine room was being prepared for the press conference. Under normal circumstances the room was used by the douzeniers, elected officials who dealt with some of their parish’s administrative duties – the granting of building permits and dog licences, the overseeing of rubbish removal, the upkeep of cemeteries. The space was also hired out for parties and functions. It was perfect for the press conference the police were about to hold. It was more of a town hall meeting, he supposed, as they had decided to open it to the public, at least those who might have heard the bulletin they had released to the radio and local TV channels an hour ago. Because they needed as many people to know about this as quickly as possible if they were to have any chance of finding Lisa Bretel alive.
