Time Enough to Die

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Whatever, it wasn’t as though she was going to church or anything. And she sure wasn’t going to wear her pumps, not tramping around outside. She laced up her boots and stuffed her ID and some money into her pocket. The cell phone, she saw, was set to vibrate, not ring. Good. She hooked it over her waistband, beneath her sweater. If Nick saw it, she could always tell him Matilda gave it to her in case she needed a ride back to town. That was close enough to the truth that it wasn’t a lie.

  She was working for Scotland Yard, Ashley assured herself. Chin up and back straight, she went down the stairs and threaded her way through the throng in the lobby. The sidewalk outside was hardly less crowded. Bryan, wearing plastic armor and helmet, jeans and basketball shoes, waved people toward the dig. “I stepped on Jennifer’s sheet,” he confided, “and it came off, so she sent me over here to shill.”

  “She was wearing a leotard underneath, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah!” Bryan grinned.

  Ashley laughed. “Keep up the good work,” she told him in her best Matilda voice, and headed toward the center of town.

  Spectators gathered around the polygon. Morris dancers, wearing white shirts, knee breeches, and bells, capered to a sprightly flute tune. Another group whacked staffs together as they danced, clicking and clacking as well as jingling. From the wooden torso and horse’s head of the hobby horse stuck two human legs and a huge stomach. Clapper, Ashley realized. He cut a swathe through the crowd, bopping people over the head with a balloon tied to a stick and telling ribald jokes. Several robed figures wearing the ancient antler headdresses emerged from the church and began chasing the hobby horse. The audience laughed, cheered, and took pictures. It was more like Disneyland, thought Ashley, than a religious event.

  The hobby horse bore down on her. One of the antlered figures brushed against her, filling her nostrils with the scent of sweat and mildew. She liked the dancers better. She could see their faces.

  There was Nick, leaning against the window of the Job Centre where she’d first seen him—when? Two weeks ago? Ten years ago? In his drab army-surplus clothes he looked like a crow in a drift of confetti. He was facing toward the dancers and the maskers but was looking right through them. Of all the faces in the crowd his was the only one empty of expression. He looked like those pictures of soldiers who’d been on the front lines too long, Ashley thought sympathetically. Stressed out.

  She fought her way to his side. “Nick?”

  His dark eyes stared at her, then, with a blink, cleared. “Eh, Ashley. Are you ready, then?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she told him.

  With a last glance over her shoulder toward the music and laughter and colors, she followed Nick down the street toward the car park. His mud-spattered car was parked at the edge of the crowded lot, in a no-parking zone. He climbed into the driver’s seat. She clambered into the passenger side as he started the engine.

  Ashley tried several questions about the dig, the festival, the ceremony. Nick answered with monosyllables. Great, she thought. How was she going to prove to Gareth that Nick was innocent if he didn’t say anything? And part of her mind answered, if he doesn’t say anything, then you won’t find out that he’s not innocent.

  Ashley stopped talking and tried not to hold her breath.

  The camp was silent. The dark fir trees repelled the sunlight. After the bright afternoon the interior of Nick’s caravan seemed particularly dingy. Water dripped over the dishes in the sink. The air was stale.

  “Wendy and Bob went on to Durslow, to gather brush for the bonfire. We need to bring along that lot.” Nick gestured toward the boxes stacked on the bench, each with its neat The Antiquary’s Corner label. Instead of picking any of them up, though, he dropped down on the opposite bench and stared at a saucer full of cigarette butts.

  Ashley leaned uneasily against the cabinet. If she could only get Nick to see it was in his best interest to help Gareth and Watkins. But how? Reason didn’t seem to be Nick’s strong point.

  He chose a misshapen cigarette butt, scrounged in his pocket for matches, and lit up. He inhaled deeply and leaned his head back against the wall. The smoke had a sweet pungency unlike the acrid stench of tobacco.

  Ashley rolled her eyes. Like getting wasted was going to help? That was just the sort of thing that gave people like Reynolds—and Gareth and Watkins, for that matter—ammunition. Nick’s attractions were fading right before her eyes. Today even his hands were dirty, flecked with reddish-brown dirt or paint.

  At least pot left people mellow, not combative like her father after a few drinks. Nick sat with his eyes closed, his furrowed expression smoothing itself out, bestirring himself only to offer Ashley the burning stub. Emphatically she shook her head. If nothing else, she had to keep sober while she was with—well, he was a suspect. And who knew what his friends were capable of.

  She forced open a small window above the sink and breathed eagerly of the fresh air. Come on, she urged herself, let’s see some of that assertiveness.

  Ashley took the joint from Nick’s fingers seconds before it burned them and squashed it on the saucer. Then she opened the door of the caravan. A gust of wind dissipated the pall of smoke. The metal fabric of the trailer creaked and popped.

  Smiling lazily, Nick opened his eyes. “What’re you on about?”

  “If you’re going to be on about your business, you don’t need to knock yourself out with that stuff.”

  “My business? You mean the ceremony?

  “Yes, the ceremony. And solving Linda’s murder.”

  “That’s never going to be solved, not now,” he said.

  “Don’t give up so easily. Clean yourself up and go to the police. They’ll believe you if you act believable.”

  “No. . . .” His voice trailed away. He stared down at his hands. Slowly, laboriously, he stood up. He contemplated the dripping faucet for a long moment, and then rinsed his hands off.

  For the first time Ashley began to understand how her mother felt when she herself started acting squirrelly. Except she doubted if her mother’s frustration was ever edged with fear. “You don’t have to go to Watkins. Go to the Manchester police, they’re not prejudiced against you. Point out how your father is a local businessman.”

  Nick’s expression said, yeah, right.

  “Tell them Reynolds is stealing the artifacts, ruining the local heritage. Then tell them about Linda. I bet a formal investigation of Reynolds’s affairs would gather enough evidence to convict him.”

  “I’ve already convicted him,” Nick said, with a thin smile that made Ashley step back a step.

  If it feels wrong. . . . Getting in his face wasn’t working. Fine. She turned toward the table and picked up three boxes. “Here, let’s get these loaded into your car. You don’t want to be late for the ceremony.”

  “That might not matter any more, either,” Nick returned. But he let her pile a few more boxes in his arms and cajole him out the door.

  Small objects rolled back and forth in the boxes she held. She peeked, and saw several crystals, a candle or two, a wreath of withered green stuff that was probably mistletoe. Magical accessories.

  “The Celts came from the east,” said Nick. “So did my family. Now we’re isolated along the fringe of the west. Now we’re knocked about by materialistic society. Greedy sods like Reynolds, lying and looting and killing.”

  “Then you need to turn him in, Nick.” Ashley opened the car door and piled her boxes in the back seat.

  Nick gazed into the distance, to where the lowering bulk of Durslow Edge closed the horizon. “He’s lied about so much, maybe he was lying about everything. Maybe he was using the true believers to his own ends.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Druid sends messages through Bob. I’ve never seen his face. I don’t know whether Bob has. But once I saw Bob mucking out the stables at Fortuna Stud—well, I’ve done that often enough myself, to turn a few bob. . . .” He looked vaguely puzzled at his unintend
ed pun.

  Now we’re getting somewhere. Ashley took the boxes from his hands and loaded them in the car. “You think Bob’s been working with Reynolds?”

  “I’ve never liked him. He’s a stroppy berk. Bob, I mean.”

  “Your point being?” asked Ashley.

  “What if Reynolds was the Druid? What if it was all a lie—no, no, it’s can’t be a lie, the ceremonies. . . .” Nick’s face crumpled and for a moment Ashley thought he was going to cry. She patted his arm. Poor Nick. He was just a kid, wasn’t he? In some ways they were a lot alike. They were both in over their heads.

  The wind stirred the needles of the fir trees. No human beings moved among the motley collection of vehicles, but Ashley wondered whether faces were watching her from the scummy windows. If it feels wrong, bail out. She assumed her Matilda voice. “It’s what you believe that’s important. If you believe it’s true, it is. That’s the way religion works. Your faith can give you strength, just as long as you don’t use it to hurt people.”

  “Hurt people? No, I’m not the sod’s been hurting people.” He shook his head. “Come back inside, luv. A bit more of the weed, or a drink, that’ll do.”

  “No it won’t,” Ashley told him. “Tell you what, I’m going to head back into town. I—ah—I forgot something. I’ll meet you at Durslow at sunset.”

  “You’re going, are you?”

  “I’ll be back. You get yourself some coffee or something.” She turned and strode toward the road, breaking free of the chill shadow of the trees. When she got around the corner she’d call Gareth and ask him to come pick her up. She’d tell him she was resigning her commission because she wasn’t up to the work, it was too complicated and frightening and she didn’t know who she could trust. . . . Shit. And she’d wanted to impress him, too. That little scrap of information about Bob and the Druid was hardly anything important.

  She felt Nick’s eyes on her as she walked away. Maybe he was hurt. Maybe he didn’t care. All she knew was that he wasn’t what she thought he was.

  At the first bend in the road she glanced back. He was still standing there, a solitary human figure in the mechanical detritus of society, overshadowed by dark trees like a memory of nightmare. Then she was around the corner and he was gone.

  She lifted her sweater and took the cell phone out of her waistband. Oh—she had two messages. What with Nick and everything she’d never felt the phone vibrate. Had they been checking up on her? She pressed the keys and listened as Matilda’s voice said, “Ashley, don’t leave town with Nick. Stay at the hotel. I’ll be there to explain in just a few minutes.” The second message was also Matilda, sounding even more breathless. “Ashley, are you with Nick? Get away from him, now. Call me, let me know where you are. Now.”

  What was that all about? No problem though—she’d already gotten away from Nick. . . . A white BMW came up the road behind her, slowed and stopped. The passenger window glided down and Howard Sweeney leaned across the seat. “Hullo, hullo! What are you doing here? Don’t you know big bad wolves gobble up little girls like you?”

  All right! It was someone she could trust, someone who knew the truth about Gareth and Matilda. She’d even forgive him his appalling sense of humor. “Can you give me a ride back into town, Dr. Sweeney?”

  “By all means. Hop in.”

  Ashley climbed into the car, and sank into its leather-scented interior thinking that there was something to be said for materialism.

  “Why are you carrying that mobile phone, my dear?” he asked.

  She set it down in the bin between the seats. “I was supposed to be helping Gareth. Detective Inspector March. So much for that bright idea.”

  “Really? Tell me about it.” He glanced over at her, his teeth gleaming in a smile.

  The sun dropped further into the west, lengthening the shadows that reached toward Durslow Edge.

  * * * * *

  Gareth delivered the horses and gave Jimmy as reassuring an account as he could of a very unsettling matter. He left the old man murmuring calming words to the animals that were not reflected in his seamed face, and sprinted toward the hotel. A tiny pulse in the back of his mind beat, hurry, hurry! Why? he asked himself. Reynolds is dead.

  Hurry! He ran up the road and into the Green Dragon. The first familiar face he saw in the throng was Bryan’s. The lad was just raising a glass of lager to his lips. “Have you seen Ashley?” Gareth demanded.

  The glass reflected the amber glow of the westering sun. “Yeah, maybe an hour ago. She went up to the town.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Something wrong, Gareth?”

  “If you see Matilda, tell her to wait here for me.”

  “Sure thing. . . .”

  Gareth dived back onto the crowded pavement. In the marketplace he was engulfed by a group of Morris dancers and several nightmarish antlered figures that looked like Bambi re-interpreted by Picasso. He glanced down the street toward the police station. Yes, the police car was parked out front. Della was presumably inside. Matilda could be anywhere. So could Ashley.

  Emma, dressed like a cheap tart in mini-skirt and high heels, was sidling along the churchyard fence, chased by the grotesque hobby horse. Gareth elbowed his way through the crowd, arriving at the gate in time to hear Clapper’s voice—and smell a strong odor of beer—emanating from the roughly carved horse’s head. “Now, now, sweetie, don’t you be giving me the push—everyone knows you’re none too dainty about your boyfriends.”

  “Get knotted, you old geezer,” Emma retorted, “You think I give a toss what sodding everyone think they know?”

  Snickering, Clapper cantered away.

  “Hello, Emma,” said Gareth. “Did you bring the papers and the box?”

  “And a lovely afternoon it is to you, too,” she replied acidly. “What’ve you been at? Digging peat?”

  Hurry, hurry, ticked Gareth’s mind. “Sorry. There’s been a spot of bother. Where’s Celia Dunning?”

  “Looking for blood to suck. I said thank-you for the ride but I don’t have to be seen in public with her, do I?”

  “Have you been with her all day?”

  “Yeh, what of it?”

  “Did you bring the papers?”

  “In me bag here. She put the box in the safe. Let’s find a pub, a ploughman’s and some plonk wouldn’t come amiss.”

  “Later. I need to see the papers now.”

  Emma’s red mouth made an inverted U in her white-powdered face, lower lip protruding. Her spiky black lashes looked like little spear points.

  With a grimace, Gareth drew her through the gate and into the churchyard. A crow perched on a gravestone, head cocked to the side. The Morris dancers went click-clack-jingle. Gareth pulled his warrant card from his pocket. “I’m from Scotland Yard. I’m investigating the murder of Linda Burkett. I think Adrian Reynolds was the killer. But he himself was killed this morning in a fall from his horse. If those papers don’t implicate Reynolds, then. . . .” Then what? Falling on his sword wasn’t on.

  “Oh, so that’s the long and the short of it, is it?” Emma ripped open her handbag and thrust a handful of paper at Gareth. “Thank you, Mr. March. Thank you very much.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, even as he leafed through the sheaf of papers.

  The letters were printed neatly on University of Manchester stationery. All of them began, “To whom it may concern.” The next paragraph of one letter described a second century Romano-British silver salver. Another letter reported on a first century Celtic mirror. A third mentioned a gold torc, a relic of Boudicca’s campaign, found in the treasure room of the temple of Deus Pater at Cornovium. . . . The torc?

  Feverishly Gareth skipped ahead. The last paragraph of each letter was academic prose that he pared down to its essence: “The above artifact is genuine. It was obtained legally and is offered for sale in accordance with the antiquities laws of Britain.” The signature in every case was that of Howard Sweeney.

  Gareth’s mind went
blank, as though his brain had been knocked sprawling by a prizefighter’s punch. Sweeney? He was working with the police. The killer had chucked him down the trench. Sweeney was a right arrogant bastard who enjoyed a joke at another chap’s expense. . . .

  “Good God!” exclaimed Gareth. He seized Emma’s hand and dragged her down the alley beside the church and past the Maypole so quickly he almost pulled her right off her shoes. “Here!” she protested, but was too out of breath to say more. In the doorway of the hotel they rushed by Bryan, who called, “Matilda wants you to come up to her room.”

  Gareth dragged Emma up the stairs. He raised his hand to pound on Matilda’s door. The late afternoon sun cast horizontal beams through the corridor windows.

  * * * * *

  Matilda shut the door of her room and braced herself against it. Still she could hear Della’s defenseless weeping in the back room of the police station, still she could sense Adrian’s helpless rage dissipating into the dank air of Shadow Moss. A tiny pulse in the back of her mind beat, hurry, hurry!

  Bryan had given her Gareth’s message and told her Ashley had already left. With Nick, presumably. So the girl hadn’t gotten her message. Hell! She pulled out her phone and tried again. Still no answer. Matilda left another message, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  What Nick’s mood was Matilda couldn’t begin to guess. She hoped to heaven the boy had satisfied his taste for violence, and that Ashley was in no danger from him. But every instinct Matilda trusted told her the girl was in danger from someone. Who? Matilda demanded of herself.

  Hurry! She pushed herself away from the door and gazed belligerently around the room. At more than a few moments of crisis over the years she’d tried to focus her sixth sense like a magnifying glass. She’d never succeeded—it was too elusive. Ever since her arrival in Corcester she’d felt as though she had a blank spot in the center of her senses, a perceptual rather than a visual cataract. She’d kept expecting the spot to clear as the case cleared. Even now, however, neither case nor cataract looked any less blurry.