Vikki looked worried. "Now? In daylight?"
"Now," said Malone firmly, standing. "Put something dark on. Black trousers. Strong shoes. Cover your hair."
"Mrs Johnson is sure to see us."
"We'll have to take that chance."
Anne was more worried than Vikki when she heard that Malone wanted to take her daughter to the lake but she accepted that it was necessary. She stood at the front door to wave goodbye to Malone as he started the Range Rover and executed a three-point turn in the lane. As he reversed close to the front door, Vikki darted out out of the cottage, bent double, and dived into the vehicle through the tailgate. She wriggled under the rug that Malone had spread out and was hidden before he had engaged forward gear to complete the turn. He waved to Anne as he accelerated away. The whole operation had been neatly performed in less than three seconds. "How was that, Mr Malone?" asked Vikki from the back of the Range Rover.
"Brilliant, young lady. Well timed. Stay out of sight."
Anne remained on her doorstep until the Range Rover had gone. Mrs Johnson's net curtains had twitched but it was unlikely that she had seen anything amiss. She resisted the temptation to give her nosey neighbour the finger and went indoors.
Malone arrived at the lake five minutes later. The pontoon had been partly dismantled and watchman's caravan had gone. He was alarmed to see that the numbers on the beach had swelled to about 100. They were all standing silently, hands clasped together, heads bowed. One of the two morris police keeping an eye on the gathering strolled across to the Land Rover.
"Adrian Roscoe was here when we arrived, sir," he said in answer to Malone's questions. "He left about five minutes ago. He didn't do any preaching. All he said was that everyone should pray for their salvation. We thought it best to leave him alone."
"Probably the best thing," Malone replied and wound up the driver's window as a gesture of dismissal. The morris policeman seemed uncertain at first and rejoined his colleague.
"Vikki?"
"I'm thinking hard," Vikki's voice answered from the back of the vehicle. "But there's nothing."
"Keep trying."
Five minutes passed. New arrivals joining the small crowd on the beach were outnumbered by those leaving. At least the crowd was dwindling.
"I'm sorry, Mr Malone. I'm concentrating as hard as I can but I can't hear a thing. There's nothing. Why are all these metal plates fixed to the doors?"
"Just keep your mind focussed on the Visitors. It may be that you're getting through but they can't or won't answer. Keep saying that the explosion was an accident."
"But was it? I don't know how to think lies. I can't help myself thinking that it might be a lie. And the harder you try not to, more you think about it."
Her comment reminded Malone of the children's unicorn game in which contestants were promised a prize if they didn't think about unicorns. The prize was always denied because it was held to be impossible to concentrate on not thinking about unicorns without thinking about them. "Just keep trying," he replied.
After a further five minutes Vikki complained that she was getting cramp. There was nothing for it but to take her home.
Fifty Three
At 6:00pm as the final touches were being put to the preparations for the evening's celebrations.
In his early days as a uniformed police officer, Malone had often been assigned to duties outside nightclubs and at football matches. As a result of that experience he had developed an indefinable sixth sense that told him when trouble was likely to erupt without warning. It was a sense that depended on an ability to identify and summarize seemingly inconsequential clues. Very often the clues were hardly apparent but they were there nonetheless; their presence added up to something that could only be described by that inadequate word `atmosphere'. The atmosphere in Market Square was hardly electric yet there was that strange sensation that caused Malone's sensitive antennae to respond and cause a prickling of the hairs on the nape of his neck.
The public address system riggers, working up ladders to make last minute checks to their speakers, weren't whistling as they normally did when setting up the sound for discos. Maybe it was the cloying humidity which was the worst it had ever been. Other groups were subdued as they prepared their stands. Maybe it was the news of Roger Dayton's death? Unlikely. From his personal experience of the yachtsman's abrasive, forthright manner, Malone knew that he wasn't particularly liked.
The Crown's waiter brought Malone his beer but he didn't make a start on it. He would need his wits about him therefore the one drink he had allowed himself would have to last. He settled the radio earphone more comfortably and listened to the cryptic exchanges between Carol Sandiman and various police units. As with previous operations, they were using callsigns that primarily identified coded locations rather than individual officers.
Everything was going smoothly. The Woman's Institute barbecue supplies wagon was given a thorough search by two morris police. It was still fairly quiet in the square so the two men helped the women heft the sacks of just-lifted second early potatoes. The easing of the food rationing restrictions for carnival and disco nights was becoming a Pentworth tradition.
The square was starting to fill when the Bodian Brethren's mobile canteen entered. It was driven by Helen, the senior solar sentinel that Malone had interviewed on the night of the raid on Pentworth House. A carnival marshal assigned the converted Winnebago to its parking spot on the north side, and four morris police gave it a close going over. Mindful of Malone's watching eyes, they poked into everything, even to the extent of using probes to investigate the oil in the vehicle's deep fat friers, and rapping the bright orange propane gas cylinders. The rear half of the canteen's interior was an empty compartment containing sound equipment and the rear-projection video player. There was nowhere to hide anything nevertheless they shone lights through the ventilation slots in various pieces of equipment and took up the floor panels to inspect the bank of batteries. One of the morris police gave Malone a signal to indicate that the vehicle was clean.
The tempo of activity increased as evening shadows crept across the square. Plastic chairs and tables appeared. The rear of the Winnibago opened to expose the video screen. Children gathered in excited anticipation. Helen appeared holding a microphone with a routine that had always been performed by a male sentinel at discos and village fetes. But the children loved it, regardless of the sex of the presenter.
"Do you deserve a Tom and Jerry cartoon?"
"YES!" the thickening crowd of children demanded as one.
"Oh, no you don't!"
"Oh yes we do!"
Malone noticed that it was a woman sentinel who entered the Winnibago's side door to operate the video projector. Hitherto it had always been a male. His unease mounted.
"I don't think we've got a Tom and Jerry tape!"
"Oh yes you have!"
"Oh no we haven't!
"Oh yes you have!"
"Oh yes we have!" Helen looked pleased as her audience dissolved into laughter.
The screen glowed and the delighted children were soon hysterical at the antics of the cartoon cat and mouse.
By 7:30pm Market Square was dimly-lit by a series of small spotlights that were powered by a generator parked in a nearby street. Malone estimated that there were five hundred people in the square. Music was pounding from the disc jockey's consoles on the steps of Government House, drowning the cartoon's soundtrack but the children didn't seem to mind. The Woman's Institute barbecue was filling the air with the smell of hotdogs. Family groups were busy commandeering tables and chairs, lighting candles that imparted a cheerful glow. Waitresses dressed as Elizabthian serving wenches were taking and delivering orders. Some people had noticed the unlit floodlights and were speculating about the time of the promised big switch-on. Malone sauntered across the square to the far corner where Mrs Williams ran her little shirtmaking shop. Originally the premises had been one of Pentworth's many antique shops that had now disapp
eared. Seats at tables around her shop were occupied by the 20-strong force of Malone's special protection unit. All were in plainclothes. Anyone trying to use a spare table and chairs in the corner were advised that they were reserved.
Mrs Williams came bustling out of her shop to greet Malone. A small, pleasant-mannered, greying woman who knew Vikki and her family well. Anne Taylor had assured Malone that she could be trusted implicitly.
"Everything all right, Mrs Williams?"
"All ready, Mr Malone. There's your phone." She indicated a telephone on a low ledge by the table where it was out of sight. It was permanently connected to Carol Sandiman in the operations room. "When will they be here?"
"Soon," said Malone non-committally, sitting at the table and not acknowledging the existence of his men.
"Have you noticed how few men there are here from Pentworth House?"
"Yes, Mrs Williams," said Malone evenly. "I had noticed." His .45 Smith and Wesson was a solid presence in its armpit holster as he adjusted his earphone.
Chapter 54.
IT WAS DARK WHEN the delivery-collection cart stopped outside the Taylor's cottages. It was crewed by Russell Norris and Carl Crittenden. Their timing was near-perfect -- they were within 30 seconds of their ETA. Carl jumped down and inspected the cart's offside wheel with a flashlight. He grasped it by the rim and worked it back and forth as though he suspected that there was something wrong with it.
"Bearing's working loose on this one," he reported. "It needs tightening." He released the drop down side panel and found a toolbox. As he did so, a crouched figure clad in black slipped silently from the shadows at the side of the cottages and climbed nimbly aboard the cart. The figure wriggled under blankets and sacking, squeezing to one side and was joined by a second figure who did the same. Two more figures boarded the cart while Carl was tinkering with the wheel. "Okay," he called up to Russell. "Should be all right now."
Carl returned the toolbox and latched the side panel closed. He jumped up beside Norris. They were about to move off when they heard a sound above that they had heard before. It was faint but there was no mistaking the beat of the spyder's rotors. The two men looked questioningly at other.
"We'll report it from a TK," Norris decided and flicked the reins. The cart moved off at a sedate pace.
Vikki's heartbeat had returned to normal by the time the cart left the rutted lane and turned onto the smooth asphalt of the road.
"Well done, ladies," said Russell. "Can't think that anyone saw you. But best you all stay hidden."
"I bet old Mrs Johnson saw the cart stop," Anne's voice answered from beside Vikki. "Nosey old cow."
"She wouldn't have seen you," said Carl reassuringly. "Didn't even see you myself. You all okay back there?"
Ellen and Claire answered that they were fine. Claire complained that the blanket smelt of horses.
"Vikki?"
"I'm okay," Vikki's voice answered from under her sacking.
"You all got your changes of clothing?"
"We've got everything," Ellen answered.
The cart lurched and creaked on through the night. Its motion was a bleak reminder for Ellen and Vikki of the time when the Bodian Brethren had paraded them naked through the streets of Pentworth on a dogcart, their wrists manacled to a crossbar.
They were assailed by a sudden overpowering scent of water hyacinth as they passed one of the sewage treatment ponds that Asquith Prescott had initiated. They stopped for a couple of minutes while Norris phoned in a brief report from a telephone kiosk and resumed their journey. Vikki sensed the slight increase in gradient which told her they were nearing the town. She heard voices of passers-by exchanging greetings with the two morris police.
"Still a lot of people heading for the carnival," Russell reported in a voice loud enough to be heard by the concealed passengers. "Not far now. Just passing Baldock's Field."
"What's that noise?" Ellen asked from under her blanket.
"Test running the big jenny. And that hissing and clattering racket is David Weir's old rust bucket." "Her name's Brenda," Carl reprimanded. "Show some respect. Me and dad have put a lot of work into that old lady."
"It's a rust bucket," said Ellen. "David thinks more of that bag of rivets than he does of me."
"People near," warned Russell.
"The light-hearted exchanges did little to allay Vikki's mounting fear of what lay ahead. Mike Malone had emphasised the importance of surprise. But how surprised were Adrian Roscoe and his sentinels going to be? Just after Malone had left following their visit to the lake, she had seen Himmler from an upstairs front window, heading for home with a robin in his mouth. Knowing that her mother would have a screaming fit, she had pulled the net curtain aside and banged on the window. It had been intended as a quick warning, and she had been horrified to see Mrs Johnson in the lane, also threatening Himmler. She had looked up at the window just as Vikki dropped the net curtain. At that the old lady had come storming up to their front door and banged furiously. Vikki had heard the conversation, hidden at the top of the stairs.
"I just saw Himmler with a robin, Mrs Taylor."
"Really? I'm surprised. Himmler and robins don't usually hit it off together."
"He'd killed it!"
"Robins are getting so vicious these days. They're displacing starlings as the skinheads of the avian world."
"Himmler's lost his collar. The bell used to stop him catching birds."
"I'll get another one if I can find one. That's a promise, Mrs Johnson."
"Is Vikki back? I thought I saw her."
"Not yet. Even my husband couldn't always tell the difference between us. Must dash -- I've got something cooking in the garden. I'll try and hunt down a collar for Himmler next time I'm in town. Goodbye, Mrs Johnson."
"I'll phone around for you if you like. They just given me a phone."
"That's very kind of you, Mrs Johnson. Goodbye."
With that Anne had closed the front door and gone off muttering to herself about Mrs Johnson being a prying old biddy.
Vikki had darted to a front window and watched the old woman leave, staying carefully hidden this time. Mrs Johnson had walked a little way and stopped to turn and stare back at the cottages before returning to her own cottage. There was a notice on the wall beside her front door that Vikki hadn't seen before:
TELEPHONE AVAILABLE HERE FOR EMERGENCIES
Carl's voice intruded on her thoughts. "Journey's end coming up, ladies. We'll be turning into the alleyway behind the shops in a few minutes."
Vikki's heartbeat quickened and a cold knot of fear writhed like a trapped demon in her stomach.
Chapter 55.
MALONE WAITED FOR THE disc jockey's record to end before calling Carol Sandiman on the telephone that Mrs Williams had provided. The policewoman answered immediately. "Mr Malone?"
"Good evening, Carol. I've been listening to PMR. Have you had any landline reports on Adrian Roscoe's whereabouts?"
"Nothing, Mr Malone. Hardly any sentinels up and about. Looks like they're staying in their HQ."
Damn!
"Russell Norris has just landlined to say that everything's okay. He says that the spyder's stooging around at a considerable height."
"Does he know its course?"
"He said that it's too high and that he and his company will be with you in about ten," said Carol. "Do you want them delayed until Roscoe shows up?"
Malone glanced across to the steps of Government House. There was activity around the rostrum that had been prepared for Bob Harding's switch-on. One of Tony Selby's engineers was talking into a telephone while trying the big main switch. He gave a thumbs up sign to a colleague. The cartoon videos being shown by the Bodian mobile canteen had stopped. "No. We'll carry on as planned," Malone decided.
"I'll call you on this landline the moment Roscoe's seen."
"Thank you, Carol." Malone hung up and was lost in thought for a few minutes. That the spyder was around offered little comfort; he
doubted that it would or could interfere in any way. He rose for a word with the nearest morris policeman in the group sitting at the corner tables. "There's no sign of Adrian Roscoe," he muttered. "Pass it on to the others."
The officer looked concerned. "Do we scrub, sir?"
"No. Maybe it'll mean everything passing off without trouble. We might as well carry on." Malone returned to his table and ordered five soft drinks.
"Five?" queried the waitress.
"I'm expecting friends."
The girl returned with the drinks. Malone was positioning them in the centre of the table where they wouldn't get knocked over just as Bob Harding emerged from Government House to be greeted by an assortment of cheers and catcalls. There were some hostile yells from members of the public on Malone's side of the square. He heard a woman cry "kill the witches!" He turned and saw that it was the same woman who, that afternoon at the lake, had shouted a phrase from the Old Testament at him. Exodus chapter 22, verse 18. `Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' It was a admonition that had caused the most terrible suffering down the ages. It was `EX2218' spray-painted on Ellen Duncan's shop window that had marked the opening of the vitriolic hate campaign against her by Adrian Roscoe and his followers. And now Roscoe's message had spread from the confines of Pentworth House to gain a hold over a sizeable percentage of the populace. Just how sizeable, Malone wished he knew.
The woman stood and pointed an accusing finger at Malone. She uttered a single word:
"Mekhashshepheh!"
It wasn't the first time that Malone had heard the ancient Hebrew curse in Pentworth but it was the first time it had been uttered so openly. The plainclothes morris police seated around Malone's table became tense, expecting trouble to erupt. They relaxed when the woman's embarrassed companions pulled her down into her seat. She continued to glare at Malone.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls," said Bob Harding over the public address system. He was standing at the rostrum, wearing a radio-microphone headset, a small spotlight was trained on him. "On behalf of the hard-working organizers, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to our August carnival. First the bad news: the Women's Institute are confident that they have plenty of their homemade hotdogs and hamburgers to last the evening."
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