The Cold Calling Part 50

His footstep echoes in an unfurnished room. There is a smell of sawdust. He switches on the light to discover that room seven is presently undergoing refurbishment. There are scattered tools and heaps of plaster and some paint-stained overalls.

He hears voices from the landing and creeps back to the door.

Because of the age of the house, the pa.s.sage is narrow, and the two people are in single file, walking away from him towards the stairs, the woman obscured by the man, whose back is turned to the Green Man until he half turns to make sure he has locked the door of room five, and the Green Man recognizes him at once, from Castle Farm. He's probably the nephew of Marcus Bacton, and he poses a slight problem. For the Green Man's human quarries, to date, have all been hunted singly.

Well, no hurry. They're obviously going for dinner. Now that he knows, the Green Man emerges and takes a leisurely look around the upper rooms of this pleasant old house. He finds two ugly metal fire escapes, geomantically disastrous for such a building, but obviously useful to him tonight. In fact, he uses one to effect his exit, wedging the door open just a slit, using a chisel he has found in room seven.

Who knows? The chisel may be useful later. At the bottom of the fire escape, he finds himself in near-complete darkness amid trees and bushes, but, when he emerges onto a lawned area, the moon emerges too, from behind a cloud, and he can see the lie of the land as far as the ma.s.s of the mountain called Sugar Loaf.

He walks round the perimeter of the building and arrives on the other side of the fire escape, where he discovers a narrow path leading through bushes to higher ground.

A mound, in fact. A distinct mound! Elation blossoms like a golden flower in the Green Man's groin.

Not yet.

The mound is flat-topped. A tumulus, surely! A holy place. A small area has been dug, where some fool has attempted to plant flowers.

The Green Man sits on the mound, in meditation, for some time, perhaps hours. He sleeps. The moon is in his eyes. In his dream, the moon becomes a Druid's s.h.i.+ning sickle. He awakes and, for a moment, it seems that the moon is finely rimmed with blood. When he comes to his feet and stretches, he is cold but braced. And certain in his mind. At last, the Earth calls to him.

He removes his clothes. He stands in his majesty atop the holy mound, lifts his arms to the shadow of the Sugar Loaf. He is not at all cold now. He feels the flow of energy through the land ... he knows instinctively that this is a crossing point. The Earth calls again to him, and he lies down upon the area of attempted cultivation, and he penetrates Her.

'Am I getting this right, Cindy? This guy f.u.c.ks flowerbeds?'

'And probably rubs damp soil into his skin.' Cindy didn't look at him. 'And eats it, of course. He sees the Earth as his lover. He wants to be a part of Her and Her of him. In Her, in him. Think about it. But resist, at all times, any temptation to regard this man as ludicrous.'

'Unlikely,' Bobby Maiden said grimly.

And thought about it. Thought the unthinkable. About the smell and the taste of the grave. About the smell and the taste as he lay with Em. And his reaction to it. It made him want to put his shoulder against the car door and hurl himself into the road.

'Calm yourself, Bobby.'

'What are the chances,' he said tautly, 'of him being impotent with women?'

'Considerable, I would say.'

'And what Magda says about him being besotted with Ersula Underhill? Do you think he was perhaps more besotted with the idea of getting close to someone he knew he was ultimately going to kill?'

Cindy waited to pull onto the main road that would take them into the city of Hereford.

Maiden pushed in the ca.s.sette.

Returning by the fire escape fully dressed, of course he enters room seven. He sees it with new eyes. At one end of the room lies a roll of carpet. And the retractable knife used to cut it. In a cleaner's cupboard in the bathroom, he has found a pair of ladies' rubber gloves which he somehow manages to stretch over his hands. He dons the paint-splashed overalls, which also are a little tight, but not too much of a problem.

He waits in room seven, but not for long. He knows he must act before the earth-energy dissipates in this filthy secondhand atmosphere, this central-heating smog.

Rage takes him. A sort of internal thunderstorm. His fingers tense and tremble ... not tremble, vibrate, his fingers vibrate.

He picks up the retractable carpet knife and pushes out its steel blade. Unfortunately, it protrudes less than an inch. Hardly a Druidic sickle! Impatient now, he gets down on his hands and knees and scrabbles around until he finds a screwdriver, and he takes the thing apart, empties the spare blades on the floor. He examines them. One is longer than the rest and has a curved end, a sort of hook thing. It is previously unused and when he tests it with his gloved thumb it slices cleanly through the rubber.

He rises. Very well, he will release both spirits. The Earth has decreed it. He will open the window immediately afterwards so that even if the blood cannot soak into Her, its essence will be carried into the night air.

He wrenches open the door of room seven, and, almost simultaneously, another door opens.

The lighting in the pa.s.sage is dim, but if Bacton's nephew had glanced to his left there would have been enough light for him to see the Green Man in his majesty. And all would have been ruined. But the Earth is with him tonight ... the nephew, with a bundle of clothes under his arm, walks directly to the bathroom.

The Green Man steps back into room seven and waits to see what will happen.

In a short time, the nephew emerges, half dressed, and walks, with his head bowed, towards the stairs.

It is the sign.

The Green Man moves into the pa.s.sage, flicks out the short, curved blade like the moon ... another sign! and walks to the door of room five. Only then does it occur to him that these doors self-lock from the inside. Oh, he thinks, he should never have come here! His is an outdoor pursuit!

But even as he's thinking these defeatist thoughts, he notices that the door is not fully closed. A garment has been inserted around the catch of the lock to prevent it engaging.

Presumably to facilitate her lover's return, the woman has enclosed the lock in the cup of her bra.s.siere. The Green M- click.

'I think that's enough,' Cindy said. 'Take out the ca.s.sette, lock it in the glove compartment. It represents your freedom. Lock it away, don't think of personal revenge. Think what ... what a fine girl she was. Cry for her. And then put it behind you and clear your mind for what is to come. Do you hear me, Bobby?'

He couldn't see Bobby's face for his hands.

Cindy pulled alongside a phone box. 'I'm going to phone Marcus. Put him in the picture.'

There was no reply at Castle Farm. Gone for a walk, perhaps, to think things out.

When he returned to the driving seat, Bobby looked composed again.

For now.

XLIV.

The circle was looking even more chewed up today, as if the stones had some degenerative disease.

Or maybe, once again, it was just the way she was feeling.

'Limestone,' the Reverend Charlie said. 'This is what happens with limestone. They'll still be here in another two thousand years, count on it.'

He didn't look a lot like a reverend. He had on this really old fringed leather jacket and frayed, off-white jeans and sneakers with a hole in one toe, through which you could see he wasn't wearing socks.

The sky had cleared now, late afternoon, or maybe this was a different climate zone or something. In the east, purplish clouds were forming like a mountain and the sun had a dull, dirty sheen.

'Going to rain at some stage.' Charlie had a mild, London accent. 'Nothing surer. Always rains at my weddings.'

He grinned, showing teeth that were uneven, chipped and brownish.

A lot like the Rollright Stones, in fact.

Grayle had come out here, ahead of the party, because Charlie had to come get his stuff together. She'd gotten talking to him, told him about Ersula, and he seemed like a nice guy, and he'd offered her a ride over, in his van.

She'd explained to him what had happened. How the hire car had broken down and Adrian couldn't fix it, but said he'd run back to the pub and call up the AA, and when he returned it was in a car with this couple who were headed for Chipping Norton. Made sense, Adrian said, if she went along with these people and he'd stay and wait for the AA, who sometimes took simply for ever, and he'd bring the car along to the Stones once it was fixed.

On the one hand, Grayle didn't like to leave the hire car. On the other, she'd had enough, for one day, of Adrian and his lectures. And it was kind of him. So she'd unloaded her case and gone with the people in the car and Adrian had stayed with the Rover and his cricket bag.

In the hotel in Chipping Norton, not surprisingly, there was no sign of Matthew or Janny, and Grayle obviously didn't know any other guests. Which was how she'd homed in on the individual with the dog collar.

'You conducted weddings here before, Charlie?'

'Actually, no.' The reverend ma.s.saged one of the taller stones with both hands. 'Weddings here tend to be of the pagan variety. Handfastings, that sort of thing. I'm here by way of a compromise. Friend of the family. And also just about the only ordained clergyman they could find willing to conduct an open-air wedding in a place this notorious.'

The last tourists, two spinsterish ladies in golfing-type checked trousers, walked out of the circle and didn't look back.

Grayle said, 'Notorious?'

'Been some fairly unpleasant goings-on at the old Rollrights over the centuries.' Charlie leaned against the stone. 'Well, over this century, particularly. It's because it's so relatively accessible from Oxford and London.'

'What kind of goings-on?'

'Oh, you know, satanic rites. Sicko stuff. For instance, a spaniel was sacrificed here some years ago.'

'That's awful. What kind of people would do that?'

'No-one I'd care to break bread with, Grayle, but these are difficult, desperate times. Everyone searching for a quick, cut-price spiritual fix. Could you help me with my altar?'

Charlie's altar was a small wooden picnic table. They set it up at the far end of the circle, where the pine trees reared. It looked flimsy and lonely.

'You have your church hereabouts, Charlie?'

'Don't have a church at all. I'm a sort of embarra.s.sing Anglican mendicant. Travel around, begging for sc.r.a.ps. Wedding here, two-week loc.u.m post there. Few rock festivals in the summer. They're great. Sunday morning wors.h.i.+p ... surprising how many crawl out of their tents for it, even if they're too stoned to read the hymn sheets. No, poor as the proverbial, but then so was JC.'

Charlie took out a tin box, placed it on the altar and began to roll himself a cigarette.

Grayle said, 'You think these are, uh, bad places, generally?'

'Course not. Terrific places, some of them. Wild and spectacular, like Castlerigg in the Lake District. Awe-inspiring like Avebury. Just not awfully sure about this one. Feels polluted, somehow. But, then, these are the places we should be bringing a little light down on, don't you think?'

'You think they still have power?'

'Absolutely. Why else would we have built most of our churches on the same sites? You can feel it while you're working, you really can. When you stand in front of the altar in some tiny little country church and raise your arms ... vroom!'

'And maybe you see ... things?'

Charlie's eyes narrowed. He looked her up and down. After inspecting the other guests at the hotel in Chipping Norton nothing formal, but lots of floaty stuff she'd changed in the ladies' room into a long print skirt and a scoop-neck blouse, thrown a woollen wrap around her shoulders.

'What sort of things?' Charlie said suspiciously.

'Kind of ... unexplained phenomena things?' She pulled on the ta.s.sels of her wrap. 'I think I may be a little crazy.'

The Reverend Charlie invited her to sit on his altar with him, offered a cigarette. 'Good stuff. Only the best from a man of G.o.d.'

Grayle blinked. 'Uh, not right now, thanks.'

He nodded. 'You know, Grayle, it's an odd thing, but I never saw a ghost. Problem with ghosts and I believe in them, sure they never seem to appear to people who really want to see one. Strange, eh?'

'Oh, I always wanted to see one. Back home. When I had this New Age newspaper column. But when I came over here, to find Ersula, when I was really alone in a strange place, no I did not want to see anything I couldn't explain.'

Grayle sighed and found herself secondary-smoking the reverend's dope.

Andy had dozed for a couple of hours on the sofa. Woke up feeling lousy and gave herself some Reiki. Called Marcus back. Wouldn't put it past the old sod to stay away a couple of hours and then return. Too meek, come to think of it, the way he'd accepted the idea of danger.

But no answer from Castle Farm, so she made herself some soup and got ready for work. Having agreed to call in on Tony Parker on the way. Dispense more laying on of hands.

She'd asked him could he not just call them off, these bad guys.

'If somebody sent them,' Tony Parker had said, 'if ... hypothetically, and from my limited knowledge of such matters ... some operatives had been contracted ... then the hirer would not expect to hear from them again until completion of the contract. That's the way of it. As I understand it.'

'I'll leave you to your grief, then.'

His colour was improved, no question of that. Jesus G.o.d, Andy thought, the things we wind up doing.

'Well, Sister, whatever it was, I appreciate it,' Parker had said as she stood up. 'And that offer stands.'

Had to admit she'd never treated anybody or at least any man more receptive. Mostly, they were a wee bit nervous, or trying too hard. Tony Parker, both emotionally drained and entirely confident that n.o.body would mess with him in his own office, had submitted totally, and so had realized immediate and immense benefit. Better than pills, clearly, and no side-effects. So he wanted more, and he thought he could buy it.

'You flatter me, Tony. Only, private nursing's no my thing. I prefer to put it about, you know?'

'You'll come around. And we didn't have no conversation, mind.' Suspicious now. Wondering if the treatment hadn't been some form of hypnosis to promote indiscretion.

'No,' Andy had said. 'We didn't. Listen, I'll come back tonight, on my way to work, see how y'are.'

He'd brightened at that. She pitied him. A hard-looking young guy had peeked in on them earlier. Parker would be surrounded with people like this and the older he got the less he'd be able to trust them. Half of him would have wanted to bring smart Em into the family business, the other half to keep her the h.e.l.l away from it.

'Sister,' he'd said as she left, 'I ain't decided whether I believe what you say about Maiden, but I'll do what I can to suspend things meantime. Just that other parties got to be consulted.'

This didn't entirely make sense. Who? Riggs? She'd ask him about it again, after giving him another treatment. She was out of her depth. Felt useless. Needed to be hands-on again.

Parking the car on a pay-and-display up the street from Parker's club, she contemplated ringing in sick and driving down to St Mary's. Like, she'd go to work as normal, park at the hospital, vanish into the building then out through the ambulance doors and away to the border. She'd know if they were tailing her. Wouldn't she?

'Mr Parker, please,' she told the girl in the office next to the Biarritz Club. It was five p.m.; she could spare him half an hour. 'I have an appointment.'

The receptionist looked at her with recognition. 'You're a bit late, Sister,' she said without much feeling either way. 'Mr Parker collapsed at his desk this afternoon. We've just heard from the General he died a short time ago.'