When Gould's sister vanished, she thought, there was a much longer delay before the Interloper replacement turned up.
The three children were aged seven and eight, and had gone missing during a school trip to a place called Branksholme Woods. A picture of the woods made Denny pause, then do a quick internet search. Sure enough, some of the hits showed the area had an odd reputation. One entry in particular made her sit up. It was a paragraph from a nineteenth century travel guide to the West of England.
'Gypsies are said to avoid the woods because they fear that their children would be taken by unspecified beings that inhabited it. There seems no basis for this superstition, other than the notorious ignorance of the unlettered Romany.'
“Prejudiced much, Mister Victorian Writer?” she murmured, searching for more data. “Aha!”
Here was another excerpt from a guide, this one pointing out historic sites. It claimed that, in the 1930s, archaeologists had found 'a pagan altar' in Branksholme Woods. Unfortunately, that was all the entry said. Denny searched in vain for more information on the altar, but was unable to find even a basic description.
“Great,” she murmured. “Maybe it's still there, or maybe it's somebody's garden ornament by now.”
She made another note.
At Hereford, she picked up her rental, which was a jeep. Denny reasoned that she might have to tackle some country roads. She had practiced with right-hand drive vehicles in the last few weeks, which proved to be a good idea. She had hoped that British roads outside London would be less confusing, but without GPS, she would have gotten lost almost immediately.
Denny arrived at her destination just before dusk. After she crested a gentle ridge, she pulled over to take in the view. Under clouds that threatened rain, the town seemed to huddle in its valley. Branksholme Woods was on the opposite side of the valley, and in the evening sunlight, it was bright with autumn colors.
Looks pretty pleasant now, she thought. But so did Malpas Abbey.
A sharp knock jolted her out of her reverie. A man was bent over, looking in through the passenger side window. He was about fifty, with a straggly beard and what looked like farmer's clothes. She toyed with the idea of simply driving off, but then decided not to alienate any of the locals. She lowered the jeep's window.
“Hello!” she said.
“You lost?” asked the man.
“Nope!” said Denny, doing her best to sound perky. “Just taking in the view. Is there a problem?”
The man peered suspiciously at her.
“You an American?” he asked.
“Yeah!” she replied. “Guilty as charged. I'm visiting your quaint little town, taking a little vacation.”
“Right,” said the stranger, as if vacations were vaguely disreputable. “Well, this is a bad place to stop, like. Some of them come around that corner way too fast. You might get yourself rear-ended.”
Denny resisted the urge to make a risqué joke and thanked him for the advice instead.
“I'm Denny Purcell,” she said, reaching over to extend her hand.
The stranger did not reciprocate.
“I daresay you are,” he growled, and walked away.
Denny put the jeep in gear and drove down into Machen.
“Arrived safely,” she said to herself. “Natives not necessarily friendly.”
Denny found the Black Swan without incident, parking outside the pleasant, stone-built inn. Inside, a few early evening drinkers were clustered around the bar when she walked in. A pleasant-looking woman in her mid-thirties was tending bar, along with the sullen-looking teenage girl. Denny introduced herself.
“Mel Bavistock,” said the woman, shaking hands. “Nice to meet you.”
“Mutual,” returned Denny. “This place is really lovely!”
“I'll come and help you with your luggage,” Mel said. “Get you settled in.”
After Denny had been shown to her room they chatted for a while. Denny repeated her cover story – an off-season tourist interested in history and old buildings. She then managed to work the conversation around to Mel's family. Her 'old man' had, Mel explained blithely, decided to 'bugger off to London' rather than stay with her when their daughter was born. Life was hard as a single mother but she wasn't complaining. Mel did not mention Isobel's disappearance and Denny decided to leave the topic alone.
After Mel went back downstairs, Denny unpacked, then stood looking out over the valley. It was a pleasant view, but the looming presence of Branksholme Woods made her slightly uneasy. She took out her laptop and added to her notes. She ended with, 'If I meet one of the children, will I know if they are human? I have to assume I will get some kind of vibe. But how far can I trust my instincts?'
Sighing, she closed the laptop, put on her jacket, and went downstairs.
“Is there anywhere I can get something to eat?” she asked Mel.
“Well,” the landlady replied, “I can do you a nice pie and chips, or how about some pasta? And we've got apple crumble for dessert.”
“Pasta sounds about right, and maybe I'll try that – is a crumble what we call a cobbler?”
They established that it probably was. As there would be a short wait for the food, Denny decided to take a quick walk and get her bearings. The autumn night air was already chilly as she left the Black Swan and stood for a moment, wondering which way to go.
Downhill and across the river leads to the woods, she thought. Uphill leads to the church.
Denny set off uphill, but had only gotten a few yards when she heard light, fast footsteps coming up behind her. She turned, slightly alarmed, to see a diminutive figure in a huge, ancient overcoat. As the pursuer came closer, she was revealed, by the light of a streetlamp, to be an elderly woman. At the same time, Denny's nostrils wrinkled in distaste.
She sure smells of cat, she thought.
“I knew it!” the woman exclaimed, looking up at Denny. “It's you, isn't it? I saw you getting out of that car and I thought, it's her off the telly!”
Oh crap, Denny thought. Busted.
“I think you're confusing me with–” she began, but the woman cut her off.
“You're on that program, America's Wackiest Ghosts!”
“Actually, it's–” Denny retorted, annoyed as always when someone got the show's title wrong. Then she saw the woman's expression and realized she'd fallen into a trap.
“Caught you!” confirmed the old lady. “I may look a bit barmy but I never forget a face. That's one of our favorite shows, I think we've seen all of them.”
“Okay,” Denny said, “You got me. Guess it'll be all over town by this time tomorrow, right?”
Let's see of the old reverse psychology works.
“Of course not!” said the old lady indignantly. “You're working undercover, aren't you?”
Denny nodded.
“Well, you're in luck,” the woman went on, “Mrs. Brenda Molesworth can keep a secret! And I've got your first clue for you!”
Despite her reservations about the woman's state of mind, Denny allowed herself to hope Brenda might have some useful local knowledge. She let the little woman drag her over the road to the open doorway of her cottage. Here the smell of cat urine was even more pungent.
“Erm, Brenda,” Denny said, flinching as the odor hit the back of her throat, “can you just tell me what's bothering you?”
“They've all gone!” wailed Brenda. She gestured sadly into her hallway. “All my girls and boys. All gone!”
Denny hesitated, then realized what the woman meant. Despite the stink, she allowed Brenda to usher her into the gloomy hallway, then through into a chaotic living room. Evidence of feline occupation was all around – scratching posts, baskets, a variety of toys. But not a single cat was in sight. The smell was all that remained of Brenda's 'girls and boys'.
“When did they leave?” Denny asked.
Instead of replying, Brenda switched off the light, then went to the window and lifted a net curtain. The old woman jer
ked her head for Denny to come and look. Denny stooped to peer out at the same angle as Brenda, and found herself looking up at the Black Swan.
A small, pale face was visible at one of the second-floor windows.
“All my cats left me the day she came back from the woods,” said Brenda. “That cursed child. Isobel.”
***
Snide little bitch, Jack Larkin thought, watching the jeep winding its way into Machen. Looking down her nose at me.
After the American woman drove off, Larkin continued along the road until he reached the turn to his cottage. His home lay half-hidden among a clump of old ash trees. It suited his furtive lifestyle. Since he had inherited the place he had worked intermittently as a laborer, but it was common knowledge that he made most of his money from poaching. Depending on the season, people said, you could always go to Old Jack for a pheasant, a rabbit, or a nice juicy salmon.
Tonight, though, as he laid out his gear, Larkin had other, and far bigger, game in mind.
Larkin made himself a sandwich and ate it while the night came down over the Wye Valley. The radio said the rain should hold off until later. He packed a satchel with tools that might come in handy and then – after switching off the light – put on some military surplus night vision goggles. They showed him a monochrome world; ghostly, but detailed enough for him to get about the valley without a torch.
“All right,” he said to himself. “A hunting we will go, Jack my lad.”
The urge had come upon him unexpectedly, surprising him with its intensity. It had happened a few days' earlier. He had been out taking partridge from the edge of Branksholme Woods. Most locals shunned the woods at night, and a few were wary of it even in daylight. That was all the better from Larkin's point of view. He despised superstition but was happy to reap its benefits.
On that particular night, he had wrung the necks of half a dozen sleeping birds and stuffed them in his sack without seeing another human soul. It was a fair haul and he was thinking about making his way home when he saw her. She was coming up from the clinic, which was also the home of Doctor Wakefield. Larkin had dodged behind some bushes to watch the woman pass by and head into the woods.
Something about the way she moved disturbed him, fascinated him. Roused him. He had followed her, trying not to make too much noise as he crept into the trees. But despite his well-honed skills, he had lost her. One minute her pale shape had been moving a few yards ahead of him. The next, the image had blurred, vanished, leaving no trace of movement. Leaving him frustrated, and angry. As he tramped home with his haul of pheasant corpses, he had resolved to have the woman next time.
It had been many years since Larkin had tried anything with a woman. He had no interest in nonsense like 'relationships'. He knew what he needed, and he had only ever gotten it when the woman struggled, bit, fought. In his younger days, he had become adept at seeking vulnerable prey, targeting those who would not dare speak out, or would not be believed if they did.
Once he had been careless, though, and served a couple of years for assault. That had made him cautious, and over time, his urges had become less pressing. But the sight of the strange woman leaving the doctor's house had made him feel young again. So every night since, he had haunted the place where she had appeared, hoping to have his chance, and rediscover the old, sadistic joy.
Larkin closed his cottage door and set off down towards the river. He would bag a few more birds, then lie in wait near Branksholme Woods until the first light of dawn. It might be another pointless vigil. But for some unaccountable reason, Larkin felt that the American woman was a kind of omen, a sign that change was in the air.
I feel lucky tonight, he thought.
***
Denny arranged to meet Brenda the next day and went back to the Black Swan. When she crossed the road, she looked up at the second-floor window, but there was no sign of the child.
Best not read too much into this, she thought. But it is weird that a whole bunch of cats would vanish overnight. If that's what happened.
“Did you have a nice walk?” asked Mel Bavistock when Denny re-entered the bar.
“Yes, very bracing,” Denny replied. “I met your neighbor from over the street – Brenda, the cat lady?”
The landlady frowned.
“Oh her! She's gone a bit strange over the years,” Mel said. “Living alone with just those moggies for company – not surprising. This table all right for you? The food will be another five minutes.”
“It’s fine.”
Denny let Mel lead her to an alcove by a real log fire and ordered a light beer. When Mel brought it over Denny asked if she knew any experts on local history.
“I'm really into old buildings, monuments – stuff like that,” she added.
“Oh, not really my thing,” Mel replied, wrinkling her brow in thought. “The vicar might now something, but he's not been here since a very long time. Then there's Doctor Wakefield, his family goes back a long way.”
“The town doctor?” Denny asked. “So he's actually from here?”
“Oh yes,” Mel said, setting down cutlery and a napkin by the beer glass. “Old Machen family. Trained up in Edinburgh, but came back and took over the clinic.”
Mel lowered her voice, leaned a little closer.
“Poor man's had a tragic life,” she said. “His wife was murdered a few years back, shocking it was. And they never caught the man who had done it. We were all terrified – I didn't go out after dark for months.”
Denny was genuinely surprised. From her research, she knew how rare serious violence was in these little English towns.
“That is terrible,” she said. “What happened?”
“All anybody knows is that poor Marie was out walking out on the hills – she liked walking. Terrible state she was in, when they found her.”
Mel looked around, lowered her voice even more.
“They had to use a closed coffin,” she whispered. Then she straightened up and was back to her old jolly self again. “But let's not dwell, as my mum used to say, ‘You're here to enjoy yourself.’ And I reckon your supper's ready.”
The homemade lasagna proved to be very tasty. As Denny ate, she checked messages, but nothing had come from Gould or anyone else at the Romola Foundation. She sent a simple 'I've arrived safe and sound' text to Gould, then pondered what Zoffany had told her. She had been turning over in her mind the revelation about Lucy.
If they deceived me about that, what else were they holding back?
Her decision to accept a job with the foundation seemed questionable, to say the least. But the 'Malpas Massacre' had made her just notorious enough to block a return to regular TV work. Also, she wanted to try and rescue Frankie – she owed her friend that much.
No, she concluded for the umpteenth time, even if there's mutual distrust, Romola is the best of a very limited range of options.
Later, in her room, Denny had her usual struggle to sleep in a strange bed. In this case, it was a strange bed with a lumpy mattress, and the room was stuffy. The heating was set to maximum, and Denny could not figure out how to turn it down. She made a mental note to ask Mel in the morning and then opened the window before returning to bed.
Denny tossed and turned into the small hours and finally managed to fall into a fitful sleep. She was disturbed by fragmentary dreams of the living and the dead. One particularly convoluted sequence involving Frankie, Lucy, Gould, and the underground temple at Malpas Abbey. Matt, her former lover, appeared, trying and failing to hold in his entrails.
“Sorry babe!” he exclaimed, as if he had made a laughable, minor gaff. “Guess I really screwed the pooch on this one!”
With the twisted logic of dreams, Denny found herself venturing into the Phantom Dimension, but this time did not find Lucy. Instead, she encountered Frankie in the Interloper tunnels. Frankie was trapped in a network of white fibers that grew from the walls. Denny began to hack away the living network, only to feel a tap on her shoulder. She spun aro
und to see Frankie standing behind her.
“I'm the real one,” said the newcomer, smiling.
“No,” shouted the prisoner, “I'm real, she's an Interloper!”
“You gotta choose one,” said the second Frankie.
“There's a test,” Denny said. “I know there's a real simple test.”
The second Frankie smiled wearily.
“That's a pretty dumb idea. You were fooled last time. You'll get it wrong again.”
Then the second Frankie began to change, human features fading away as teeth and talons emerged. Denny turned to free the first Frankie, the one that logic dictated must be her friend. But that one was changing, too, tearing itself free of its bonds with vicious claws. The false friends closed in on her.
The dream ended in a piercing scream. It was impossible to tell if it was human or animal, but to her half-awake mind, it suggested pain and terror in equal parts. Denny sat up, unsure of whether the sound had been in her head or outside. She got up and looked out across the valley. Beyond the streetlights of Machen, the land was dark. If the scream had been real, it was not repeated.
***
Larkin saw the woman making her way up the hill from the clinic and felt an old, powerful stirring. It was as exhilarating as poaching but promised far more satisfaction than mere profit. Through his night-vision goggles, he could clearly make out the woman's athletic stride, her long legs, and the confident demeanor.
I'll look forward to knocking that confidence out of you, darling. Hope you beg. Better not scream, though. Soon put a stop to that.
Larkin stayed in cover at the edge of the woods, watching as the doctor's 'fancy woman' strode past into the undergrowth. He waited until she was almost lost to view before setting off in pursuit. She was fairly quiet, not making the usual racket of a town-dweller at night. But he did not need to hear her to track her. She still showed up clearly, a light patch in the dark vista.
He had been in pursuit for a couple of minutes when she suddenly stopped. Larkin froze, wondering if she was aware of being followed. But if she was wary or afraid, her behavior made little sense. She seemed, so far as he could tell, to be taking off her coat. Larkin could not figure out why she would do such a thing, as the night was cloudless and distinctly chilly.
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