by Harper Fox
What the fuck use are you, if you can’t help stop something like this?
The words whipped a silent bloodstained trail through Gideon’s mind. Christ, where had that come from? Who would ever dare say such a thing to Lee? For the first time in many, many months—over a year, if he thought about it—he felt ill.
But Lee was smiling faintly. He put a hand to Gideon’s face with an unhidden tenderness that forgave all, mended all, set the world to rights. He tried to stand up, and Gideon helped him. “There you have it,” Lee said hoarsely, hitching a wry grin at Sergeant Lennox. “The whole fucking gamut. Arrest you for knowing, then call you worthless for not. Damned if you do, and...”
Gideon held his shoulders, steadying him in the wild white waters that could run beneath the surface of the most peaceable Cornish afternoon. “Right,” he finished for him. “And damned if you don’t.”
***
Rufus Pendower had vanished as inexplicably as he’d first appeared. Before Gideon could begin to worry about him, a flurried clerk stuck her head around the door of the cell, bobbing about to catch Lennox’s eye. “Ma’am! I’m sorry, ma’am, I need a bit of help out here. There’s a very upset person called Dan in reception, with an awful lot of tattoos and a placard. There’s half a dozen others with him, and they all want to see... Oh. Yes. Mr Tyack-Frayne here. If he isn’t being detained, do you think he could just come and...”
Gideon inhaled deeply. Perhaps it was the kind of breath the wolf in the story had drawn, before he huffed and puffed and blew the whole fucking town away, pigs and all. Lee, who could read him down to the last pulse and twitch, swivelled to face him, planting a hand on his chest. “No,” he warned softly. “Fans and followers not on the menu. Just let them see I’m okay.”
Reluctantly Gideon let it go. “Why can’t they see you’re bloody not?”
“Not on the itinerary. Not on their list of things to do on a tour of haunted Launceston.”
“They must be bloody blind, then.” Giving it up, he followed Lee into the corridor, stayed at his shoulder as he emerged into the small, agitated crowd disturbing the station’s business. There was an odd blindness about them, except for tattooed Dan, who seemed to have taken an informal leadership role and was permitting each of his companions twenty seconds or so with Lee, long enough for an autograph and their assurances that they were his biggest fan, even if they couldn’t see he was bloodstained and just about ready to drop. “Sorry,” Dan declared, once this process was complete. “I’d never have bothered you, Lee, only we thought we’d check in at the hospital, and someone told us there you’d been arrested.”
“Occupational hazard,” Lee said distractedly scrawling his name on the last guidebook. “If you ever take up the trade, Dan, make sure you’ve got alibis, even if it’s just a missing cat.”
“What, me? Do what you do?” Dan gave him a look of pure love. “Nobody’s like you. The police ought to leave you alone. I call it a disgrace that they messed you around like this today.”
Gideon, in uniform and an obvious target, was getting the brunt of this. But Lee had said to hold his tongue and so he did, gazing expressionlessly into the middle distance as he’d been trained to do when only present in his bodyguard capacity. Still, Lee, for godsakes. I take your point about the menu, but not even a snack?
Lee snorted as if he’d heard him. “Don’t worry, Dan. This is my husband, not my arresting officer.”
Dan blushed up to the hairline. He opened his mouth, and Gideon braced: but all that came out was, startlingly, after a moment—“Lucky bastard!”
“I’m sure he thinks so too. I tell you what—if everyone’s happy now, you wouldn’t half be doing me a favour if you’d round them all up into your minivan and get them out of here.”
“Oh! Yeah. Yeah, I will. Honest, it’s been a pleasure and an honour... Here, your shirt’s a mess. Would you like mine?”
He was starting to unbutton. Lee raised his hands. “Whoa. You hang on to that, man. That’s the one you’re wearing when your missus finally stops putting you off and says yes.”
Dan’s jaw dropped. “Oh, my God. It is? She does?”
Gideon closed a grip on the back of Lee’s belt. It was light and invisible, but said more plainly than a shouted command that enough was enough, that for today at least Lee should retract his crystal ball. Glancing devotedly over his shoulder, Dan returned to the group. “Come on, all of you lot! Back into the bus. He just did one for me, one of his flashes! Wait till I tell you!”
Once the minibus was disappearing down Moorland Road, Gideon pulled Lee into his arms. It was hard to give a comforting hug from inside a stab vest, but Lee was used to all his scratchy accoutrements and grabbed him fiercely. Beneath Gideon’s hands he felt rawly, painfully open, as if he were covered in pricked-up ears or satellite dishes set to high-power receive. Only Anna was left in the car park now, and she looked on in concern. “He’s lost control of it,” she said. “This used to happen to him in London sometimes, when he’d been working too hard and the signals would just fly in at him from everywhere. It’s like he loses his filters.”
Gideon had seen it too, the worst time in Kelyndar village when Gwylim Kitto had pulled Lee halfway through death’s door to find him. But Anna had known him for years before the Lorna Kemp case had brought him to Dark, and Gideon listened to her carefully, anxious for every scrap of backstory that could help him make the world bearable to his husband. “Is that what happened today?”
“Yes, although there was something in the Beaumont house he couldn’t identify. Lots of little friendly ghosts, and then one big... thing, very powerful. He shrugged it off, but I think it opened him up to signals from whatever was happening at that school.”
“And to everything else.” Gideon caressed the tired head on his shoulder. “Is that right, love?”
“Mm. Yeah. But the thing is, Hayley’s been turning Dan down for months. Then on Sunday night, she’s sitting with him in a restaurant and she just thinks how daft he is, how he doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks and how much he makes her laugh, with his bald head and his tatts and his great big Hawaiian shirt, and she changes her mind.”
“Oh, my God. I’m pleased for Dan, but we have to get you unplugged, sunbeam. Anna, any suggestions?”
“Well, there was this woman he used to go to in London. Did he tell you about her?”
“Yeah. Siobhan Reeves, a kind of a counsellor?”
“That’s right, only all she seemed to do was yank him out at the mains. He’d come back looking like she’d hit him with a bag of wet sand. Look, Gid, he doesn’t need anyone but you. I know it must be a headfuck sometimes, but you turned his life around. He was always a great guy, but it was like we only ever saw a quarter of him. After he met you, he just... shone out.”
Gideon took this in. Lee had transformed his life, he knew, from the ground beneath his feet to the meaning and colour of sunlight. He’d seldom thought about his own effects upon Lee: had been too busy making sure they were good ones, recovering from his occasional horrible fuckups and redressing the balance. “Thanks,” he said, careful to keep his tone level. “I’ll just take him home. Chuck him in the freezer and lock it up until he cools down.”
Lee gave a rasping laugh and got his head up. “That actually sounds quite good.” He detached himself a little way from Gideon’s embrace, not letting him go. “Jesus, Anna. I didn’t mean to ruin our last shoot.”
“What? You gave us a beautiful last shoot, especially the part where you threw up on the colonel’s rhododendrons.” She grinned, taking pity on his dismay. “The floating walking sticks were spectacular. We’ll close with those, and the crew going nuts in the background. You get yourself home with the big man now, and have a good rest.”
“What about our wrap-up?”
“Dial us in something local when you feel better.” Thoughtfully she surveyed Gideon, then went on as if scarcely meaning to, “Jack’s right, you know. If I had what you have waitin
g for me indoors, I’d never leave the house.”
She clapped a hand to her mouth. Lee stared, a grin starting. It took Gideon a moment to realise what she meant, and he gave a bark of laughter. He was dusty and sweaty, a hardworking copper at the end of a long week. Still, there was no accounting for tastes, and he dropped her a small, gallant bow. “Why, thank you, kind lady.”
“I am so sorry, Gid. I had no idea I was gonna say that out loud.”
It really was unlike her. Lee broke the awkward moment, taking Gideon by the arm. “Oh, my God. Let’s get you out of here before you cause any more havoc.”
“Me? I’m not the one who got nicked this afternoon.”
“Lucky I’m in police custody, then. You’d better escort me home.”
***
“Things are happening in threes, you know, Gid. Three, two, one.”
Uneasily Gideon glanced into the passenger seat. Lee had climbed into the truck gratefully. He’d stripped off his bloodstained shirt and huddled into a spare T of Gideon’s. Then he’d kicked off his boots and curled up as far as he could, one foot wedged against the dash, toes placed carefully so as not to hit any buttons or lights.
He was more than half asleep, by Gideon’s reckoning, and otherworldly forces were sweeping through the Rover’s cabin in spite of the sunlight and the scents of fresh new vinyl. Gideon missed the way the old truck smelled, which was stupid of him. Well, a few long rides with Isolde would soon set that to rights. “You’re still counting, love,” he observed, laying a hand to his thigh.
“I know, but this is different. Anna deciding you’re hotter than Jason Momoa, and telling you so. Me and Dan the fan, who was gonna give me his shirt—literally the shirt off his back. But I score two out of three this time, because...” His voice scraped, losing its dreamy cadence. “Because I’ve got Rufus too. I need to keep away from him.”
Gideon considered this, alarm bells beginning to ring. “I know we’ve joked around about him and his crush. He hasn’t... done anything, has he?”
Lee chuckled, rubbing his eyes. “What, you think I couldn’t handle him?” He pushed up a little way and went on more alertly, “There’s just this stupid legend at Beaumont Hall about a flute, and if you hear it, someone who loves you will die.”
Gideon shivered. “Don’t tell me. You heard the fucking flute.”
“I don’t know. I had this bloody vision coming on, and I might have been hearing anything. I thought I did, though, and when I looked up, there was Rufus. I’m scared for him. He looks awful.”
Gideon gave him a pat and tugged out another tissue from the box wedged on top of the dash. “Whereas you’re the picture of health yourself. Here, your nose is still bleeding a bit. Don’t you worry about him.”
“No, really. Did you see? He was in uniform, but I don’t think he’d shaved, and he’s lost a lot of weight.”
“He’s got a new baby, hasn’t he?” Gideon rubbed his own unshaven jaw. He was going to have to start carrying a kit around with him to sort himself out during the day, or he’d start to look disreputable. What sort of early mid-life hormone change was causing his beard to grow in faster, he had no idea, but by the end of a weekend these days he’d have grown a sleek dark coat, causing Tamsyn to stroke it admiringly and Lee to watch him with piratical Cornish lust in his eyes. “That’ll do it for the personal hygiene, as I remember. But I’ll call in on him shortly, make sure he’s okay.”
“Okay. Yeah, I’m still counting. Back to five now, and backwards—five, four, three, two, one. What the hell does that mean, do you suppose?”
Gideon didn’t know. He waited for a couple of minutes, letting the A30’s tarmac whisper hotly beneath the Rover’s tyres. As long as Lee wasn’t at the wheel and having to listen to the rage and malice of fellow drivers, he found car journeys soothing. He was dropping back into half-sleep now, eyelids flickering.
And he was wide open. Shamelessly Gideon took advantage. “If I asked you something now,” he said gently, slowing down through the gears to make the turn off the dual carriageway and into the long green lane to Dark, “you’d tell me the truth. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah. So be careful what you ask, copper.”
“Why are you working so hard at the moment, taking so much on? We’re doing fine financially. You don’t have to help every waif, stray and basket case who tugs on your psychic sleeves.”
“Oh, that’s easy. You won’t like it, though.”
“Better tell me quick, then. Before I change my mind about wanting to know.”
“I’m doing it for Tamsyn, of course. To tire myself out, drain my psychic batteries, so when I come home she can’t tap into me to boost her whammy.”
Oh, shit. Gideon had thought that ghost long since laid. David Rawle, a friend from so deep in Lee’s childhood that he’d been Uncle Dave for the first half hour of his reappearance last year, had quickly run through his store of credit. His suggestion that Tamsyn used Lee to amplify her psychokinetic powers had gone down like a granite pasty with Gideon. They’d both thrown him out, but not before the bastard had sunk the fear into Lee’s heart, a barbed hook. Rawle had vanished, and after one painful clash, they’d left him and his dumb ideas behind. Gideon had thought so, anyway. “You do know that’s a terrible pile of old bollocks, don’t you?”
“I know with my brain. Guts are taking a while to catch up.”
“Well, tell ’em to get with the programme. If Tamsie takes it into her head to float rocks or levitate Truro cathedral, she won’t need help from either of us. Can you forget about that reason for killing yourself with work?”
“I will try. If I remember this conversation, I will. But I’m counting, counting. Counting down from five.”
“You were counting up before. That was the schools, we thought.”
“No. Lennox thought that. I was just getting it backwards. Five, four, three, two, one,” he said reasonably, as if that ought to have made everything clear. “It never was wonderland, Gid, but take five from these words—she certainly gave it her all. Not quite five, maybe. Four and a half. And three quarters, maybe. She certainly gave it her all.”
“Sweetheart?”
“Mmm?”
“Should I dash you straight back to Launceston hospital?”
“No, no. I’m dreaming. I’ll be fine.”
Chapter Three
Badgers, Bleujyow, Buster
Sarah Kemp had a permanent duty of stand-by, to pick Tamsyn up from school on the rare days when neither Gideon nor Lee could make it. She’d stepped unasked into this role, and many other tasks of care, as the years unfolded and she’d almost ceased—as she’d once confessed, a bit shamefaced but smiling—to be able to distinguish their kid from her brood and her husband Wilf’s. They were all just a mass of chattering brats. She had to collect her own lot, steer them through the lanes and home for their tea and allotted screen time, so why not Tamsie too?
Lee and Gideon had been too grateful to question the arrangement. Their girl wasn’t lacking a mother figure—Elowen made regular, thoroughly scheduled visits from France, always welcomed by Tamsyn, never missed when she left—but Sarah was a fixture and foundation. And although they’d sworn to do better in time for their daughter’s adolescence, Elowen had hit a target when she’d laughed at their blushing incompetence around the word period. Lee at any rate hoped that Sarah would always be there, helping Tamsie navigate the waters with the same calm, no-nonsense tenderness she displayed to Lorna, now twelve years old and emerging from childhood in unpredictable fits and starts. She’d been fine about stepping in today, Gid had said, offering not just to escort the little girl home but to babysit for the evening.
Something must have changed. She and Tamsyn were sitting on the garden bench outside Chy Lowen. This bench, unlike the cast iron one at the back of the house, was a place of summer waiting. If either dad was later home than expected, Tamsyn would clamber up, sit cross-legged on a cushion and keep watch.
Her vigils never
seemed to be anxious ones. The bench commanded a view down the track into the village. Sometimes she would still give way to her toddler’s habit of waddling as fast as she could to meet the oncoming headlights, her other parent hot in pursuit to grab her before she could manage the catch on the gate. More often these days she would remain in dignified stillness until the car was parked, then get down and come running, delight blazing off her in such waves that neither Gideon nor Lee could ever quite think what they’d done to deserve it.
Tonight Sarah was flanked on her right by Mrs Coulter, a neat little lady in her eighties who’d befriended Elowen during her stay in Dark, and become a huge favourite of Tamsyn’s since. Bizarrely, both Gideon and Lee had mistaken her for Granny Ragwen at first. But the evening when they’d first seen her had been dreamlike, ambiguous in the wake of Lee’s encounter with Clem Atherton at the Lamorna farm. Mrs C bore a strong resemblance, and claimed distant cousinhood to the wily old lady who’d vanished at the Penzance Montol three years before. She was ordinary, though, a retired social worker whose credentials Gid had thoroughly checked before letting her have unaccompanied access to his child. She knew a lot about plants and herbs from her days as a Girl Guide leader, that was all.
On reflection, the whole Jana Ragwen thing had been a crazy stretch of belief, but he and Gid had had a day of it, Lee’s discovery of human sacrifice at Lamorna topped by the revelation that Gid’s shy, buttoned-up, reactionary inspector was a lesbian. The old lady smiled and waved as the police Rover bumped up the last few yards of the track. Quite a picture, the three of them made, arrayed in a row on the bench. Maid, mother, crone, though not with quite the right personnel, Lee’s tired brain said to him, but he was done with psychic visions for the day. He just wanted to be home. He wound down the passenger window. “Hi,” he called out over the crunch of gravel while Gideon parked on the drive. “Is everything all right?”
