by Rob Campbell
“Being honest, I don't really think about it much,” I sighed. “I'm more into books and writing. What about you?”
“Oh, it’s a bit of a passion of mine.” Victoria laughed like she’d been caught admitting some guilty secret. Maybe she felt embarrassed because of my lack of enthusiasm on the subject. “I must admit I don’t know much about this Josiah Abram, but from what you’ve just told me, he sounds right up my street.”
“In what way?” I asked, trying to lace my tone with a bit of conviction. Victoria was obviously fascinated with the whole subject, and with my earlier throwaway comment about my lack of interest in art, I didn’t want her to think that I couldn’t produce a good piece of work on my chosen subject.
“He was born in the nineteenth century, right? British artists from the late seventeen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds is my favourite era. Turner, Constable, Blake, you know, the usual favourites. But also, lesser-known artists like Danby, Abernathy and Graves. I could sit for hours gazing at a beautifully rendered landscape or losing myself in a dramatic seascape.”
My mind was still a couple of seconds behind when her words hit home.
“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat.
“I said I love a good landscape or seascape.”
“No, before that. The artists.”
“Danby? Abernathy?”
“Abernathy.”
She looked at me, puzzled. “I thought that you didn’t like art? How would you know Abernathy? He’s hardly a household name.”
“I’ve got a friend who’s a bit of an expert,” I replied, feeling a little strange describing Lester as a friend. “In fact, he owns a few Abernathy pieces. We are talking about the same Abernathy, I presume?”
“That’s amazing!” Victoria puffed her cheeks out, seemingly equally surprised at the coincidence. “The Abernathy I’m talking about was based at Durham University in the mid-eighteen hundreds. He’s most famous for a series of Northumbrian landscapes and a couple of studies of the university buildings at Durham.”
“Sounds like the same guy.”
“It’s a sad story,” she continued. “Just as he was gaining a bit of attention, he was involved in some murky business at the university and disappeared soon after.”
“Disappeared?” I said, purposefully playing the innocent. I wanted to see if her knowledge outstripped that of Lester, or more to the point, what he and the Reverend Dubois had revealed from their Wardens of the Black Heart book.
“Nobody knows the true story. There was a rumour of a small group of professors who practised occult worship, all unproven of course. Not long after the investigations, Abernathy pulled his disappearing act and was never seen again.”
“Extraordinary,” I said, surprised at her disclosure. “How do you know all of this?”
“There are a few books on the subject if you know where to look. I make a point of doing background research on all the artists that I like. It helps give me a better appreciation of their work. If you liked a particular film star or singer, you might want to know a bit more about them and how it informs their films or songs.”
“I suppose so,” I admitted.
“But you say that your friend has a few Abernathy pieces?” Victoria asked, her eyes widening.
“I know he has a few landscapes at his house.” I’d seen a couple at Lester’s.
Victoria sat back as if considering some important matter.
“Lorna, I know that it may seem a bit much to ask, but do you think that there’s any chance that I could see these paintings?” She laughed as if the idea seemed somehow preposterous to her. “As I said, I’m a big fan of Abernathy, but I’ve never actually seen one of his works in person. He’s not famous enough for most museums to display his work, and any pieces that come up for sale are well out of my price range. They don’t pay teachers nearly enough!”
I laughed at this. As she’d been speaking, I’d been thinking along similar lines myself. Here was a genuine Abernathy fan. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that in her research on the subject, she’d unearthed some information that might be of use to Lester. Was this another one of those extraordinary coincidences that kept seeming to crop up since I’d first met Monkey, when we’d been thrown together with Lester and his organisation? Monkey was very much of the line of thinking that suggested that there was some unseen hand of fate guiding events, and despite my initial reservations, the more that happened, the more the last of what I liked to call my objective defences were being torn down. Some famous TV historian had come to town to give a lecture on a local artist that I’d never heard of, and now Josiah Abram had been a catalyst for my discussion with Victoria that had caused her to reveal her love for yet another lesser-known artist in Abernathy – the very same artist who Lester Hawkstone just happened to believe had created a series of pieces that somehow controlled the destiny of many people through the last hundred years.
“I’ll see what I can do. From what you’ve said, I’m sure that my friend would love to meet you.”
* * *
After college that day, I met up with Monkey at the Recorder office so that we could get the latest on the stories that were making the news that week. Anja had prepared a review of the lecture given by Henry Bannister-Reeves on Saturday night, and there were a few follow-up interviews with people who had been injured in the plane crash.
“So, what happened after we left on Saturday?” I asked Anja.
“Not much,” she deadpanned in a tone that I usually associated with Mick.
The editor himself had been quiet since we’d arrived, briefly glancing up from his desk at the back of the office but otherwise failing to acknowledge our presence.
“You’re not planning on seeing Ramón again?”
“I might be,” she answered with a coy smile.
“He seems nice,” offered Monkey.
“He is. And that’s not all – he’s a pretty good writer. I’ve been reading some of his music articles online. For a Spaniard, he’s very good with the English language.”
“Sorry to break up this pan-European love-in,” barked Mick, “but when did you say Neil would be back?”
“Shouldn’t be long. He told me he was popping in at the nursery school on the way back. He’s writing an article about their new soft-play area,” Anja explained, presumably for our benefit.
Mick tutted and shuffled a few papers on his desk before taking a long draw from his coffee mug.
At that point, the phone on Anja’s desk rang, and she excused herself to answer it. Keeping my voice down, I used the interruption to tell Monkey about my discovery that my teacher was an Abernathy aficionado.
“She wants to meet Lester so that she can see some of his Abernathy paintings.”
“Do you think Lester will be okay with that?”
“Don’t see why not. I was thinking that if we can get Victoria and Lester together, it might give us a bit more info on Abernathy.”
Monkey didn’t look convinced.
“What?” I asked, trying to read his dubious features.
“You’d think that Lester would know everything there is to know on the subject given all those people who work in his data centre.”
He had a point there. “I know, but you never know if she’s managed to pick up some nugget of info that Lester’s team might have missed.”
Anja finished her call at the same time that the Recorder’s second reporter, Neil Martin, walked through the door.
“Here he is. Mister Big Shot!” Mick stood up from his desk and prowled to the middle of the office like some angry beast awakening from slumber. I noticed that he had a folded newspaper in his hand.
“Steady on, Mick,” said Anja, seemingly worried by the jarring shift in atmosphere.
“Everything okay?” asked Neil sheepishly.
“Okay! Depends what you mean by okay!” bellowed the editor, nervously tugging at his bushy moustache as if attempting to
calm himself. It didn’t appear to be working. He slapped the newspaper that he’d been holding down onto Anja’s desk in the middle of the office.
It was a national tabloid, dated a couple of months ago, folded to page twelve. I tilted my head to read the headline: Strange Days in Culverton Beck.
“Ah,” said Neil.
“Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?” asked Mick, the raging storm within showing no signs of abating.
“What’s this all about, Mick?” said Anja, clearly puzzled by this turn of events,
“Why don’t you tell them, Neil?” Mick seethed.
Neil looked from Anja to Mick and then at Monkey and me. “A bit of harmless fun,” he said, trying to laugh the situation off. “It got the town’s name in the national press, after all.”
“I've got a friend in London sent me this,” continued Mick. “I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say that it involves a couple of teenagers, a millionaire playboy and the rumoured theft of a piece of art.” Mick turned to look at Monkey and me. “I assume that you didn’t tell him all of this?”
I grabbed the newspaper from Mick and quickly scanned the story. There was a library photo of Lester Hawkstone that looked like it had been taken more than twenty years ago. To my horror, there was some mention of a cult, and whilst the article was clever enough not to explicitly state the story as fact – making frequent use of stock phrases such as ‘an insider said’ or ‘a source close to the millionaire stated’ – it more than suggested that Lester Hawkstone had got two teenagers involved in some occult practice that involved a cursed coin found in the woods.
“Millionaire playboy? Occult practices? Of course we didn’t tell him this – it’s a pack of lies!” From the corner of my eye, I could see Anja looking accusingly at us.
“We told you,” Monkey said to her. “We help Lester find objects that people have lost.” I couldn’t help but think that Monkey’s weak explanation had made Anja even more suspicious.
Anja looked at Neil in disgust “And you wrote all of this?”
“Well the story is accredited to some bloke called Grafton Ferris, obviously made up,” spat Mick.
“Err, actually, he’s a real person,” offered Neil meekly.
“I don’t care if he’s the president of the association of master bakers!” Mick yelled with such force that Neil took an involuntary step backwards. “My mate works for this shower in London,” said Mick, gesturing at the newspaper. “I asked him a few questions, and it didn’t take long for your name to surface.”
Mick paced around the office, staring down at the floor. Everybody stood in rapt attention, wondering where the editor’s incendiary mood would take the conversation next. “So where did you get all this guff from?” he asked Neil in a surprisingly calm manner.
“A source,” Neil replied cryptically.
“Don’t give me that bullshit! I’m your editor, so you can damn well tell me who your source is!”
“That bloke who came in here looking for the coin. The one with the briefcase.”
“Charles Gooch?” I asked incredulously.
“That’s him,” Neil confirmed, looking surprised that I would remember the name.
“You printed all of this stuff just because Charles Gooch told you?” I asked, feeling my own anger rising. Now it was Mick’s turn to look surprised.
“Well, he seemed to know his stuff. Plus, he paid well.”
Mick laughed out loud. “So now we get to the real nub of the matter, don’t we? Is that all it’s about for you, eh? Money? Never mind that you risk badmouthing a millionaire who has more than enough financial firepower to ruin you, but you have no qualms dragging two innocent teenagers into your sordid little games.”
Neil’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as if he only now fully understood the gravity of the situation. “It’s not my name on the article. You’re not the only one with friends in London,” he spat back.
“And this is just the kind of nonsense that they lap up, isn't it?” said Mick, disgusted. “Well, I hope that you'll be very happy with your friends in London, because you’re fired!”
A gloomy silence descended over the office after that. Neil, seemingly accepting his fate, took less than two minutes to clear his desk and leave in shame, without even a backward glance to Anja or Mick.
“The things that are going on around here lately. You can’t make it up,” Mick commented under his breath, returning to the notes on his desk. I wondered how he could go from fiery incandescence to humdrum backwater editor in a matter of seconds, and I worried about what it was doing to his insides.
Incredibly, Neil’s dismissal was not to be the biggest surprise in a day full of seismic revelations.
Chapter 12
Not twenty seconds after we left the Recorder office, we ran into a familiar face.
“Lorna! And Monkey, isn’t it?” Ramón Blanco sounded unsure like maybe he’d heard the name wrong when we’d met after the lecture on Saturday night.
“That’s right,” Monkey confirmed.
“I’m just on my way to meet Anja. We’re having coffee.” He smiled at me, the whiteness of his teeth standing out against his olive skin. I could see why Anja had taken a shine to the Spanish journalist, and I returned his smile.
“Every time I look up there,” he said, pointing towards the spire of St Stephen’s church where it poked through the gaps in the buildings into the gathering dusk, “I can’t believe that you climbed so high.” He turned to look at Monkey, his voice betraying a sense of wonder. “How did you do it?”
“Well, I didn’t climb all the way to the top,” Monkey corrected. “Just high enough to reach the cat.”
“Even so, mi amigo. It must have been a sight to behold.”
“He’s full of surprises, this one,” I chipped in, wondering why Ramón had chosen this odd meeting on the high street to bring up the subject of Monkey’s climb. Anja had mentioned it at the lecture, and I was impressed that he’d remembered.
“We’ll have to talk some more. Maybe you’d both like to join Anja and me in the coffee shop?”
“Thank you, but we’ve got somewhere to be. Maybe some other time?”
“Sure.” If Ramón was offended by my refusal, he didn’t show it. He said his goodbyes before heading towards the office as Monkey and I crossed the high street, walking in the direction of St Stephen’s.
“Why did you say that?” Monkey asked. “He seems like a nice bloke.”
“You mean you wanted the chance to regale him with some more of your climbing stories.”
“No, I just think you seemed a bit off with him.”
“Do you really think that he’d rather be chatting about your cat rescue when he could be alone with Anja?”
“Oh…” Realisation dawned on Monkey’s face. “You think that Anja and Ramón are…?”
“I don’t know, but I think that whatever it is that they are up to, they’re better off on their own.” I laughed as Monkey’s expression turned from wide-eyed surprise to red-faced discomfort. “Besides,” I added, “we’ve got somewhere else to be.”
“We have?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember that you promised that you’d help me with my Abram project?”
We crossed the green in front of the church, a place that I’d forever more associate with Monkey’s daring rescue of Chester the cat, and walked along the pavement that bordered the southern edge of the church grounds. Once we’d walked beyond the two oak trees, we passed under a wooden arch that gave us access to the old graveyard.
Old being the operative word.
Whereas the cemetery that my dad was buried in had graves spanning the last century, the small graveyard that served St Stephen’s had been in use ever since the church had been built in the early eighteen hundreds. I’d done a little research, and it turned out that the last burial here had been over seventy years ago. It didn’t surprise me that all the stones were old, grey and crumbling, and most were c
overed in a combination of moss and bird droppings. Henry Bannister-Reeves had said that Josiah Abram was buried here, and as a starting point for my project, I wanted to see his resting place.
“Where is his grave exactly?” asked Monkey, his eyes scanning the numerous rows of headstones before us.
“I don’t know. Why do you think I need your help?”
He looked exasperated at that, his arched eyebrows and open mouth suggesting that it was a thankless task.
“Come on, it’s not that bad. You start up here, I’ll walk to the bottom row and work my way back, and we’ll meet halfway.” When he didn’t raise an objection, and I was satisfied that I could leave him to his task, I headed down the slope to the bottom of the graveyard and then started reading the details of the first headstone.
I was checking the third grave when Monkey shouted out. “What do I do if I can’t read the words?”
“Just make a note and we’ll come back to it.”
After twenty minutes, I’d completed five rows of about ten to fifteen graves. Every so often, I glanced back up the slope at Monkey, and he seemed to be making good progress as well. I say good – the fact that he hadn’t called me back up meant that he hadn’t found what we were looking for yet. I was in the process of stretching my back, trying to ease the ache that was beginning to develop due to the crouching down and reading old inscriptions in the fading light, when I saw it.
Here lies Josiah Abram, artist. Died 1907.
I stood for a minute, re-reading the words, tension gnawing at my gut. I should have known that visiting here would bring to mind the many visits to my dad’s grave. Death was death, and despite the fact that this humble stone had seen better days, plus more than a century of inclement weather, and stood in complete contrast to my dad’s black headstone that was carved with gold lettering, I felt a surge of grief filling me up like an overflowing sink.
Putting my right hand to my face, I cradled my head between forefinger and thumb, trying to block out the memories for a few seconds.
“Monkey. I’ve found it.”
