Phil Rickman - The Cold Calling

‘He’s had a lot to cope with,’ Maiden said, as the study door slammed.

‘So have you, by the look of it, lovely. Still got an eye under there, I hope. What is it you do, Bobby?’

‘Painter. Pictures.’

‘Well, there’s interesting. Make a living at it?’

‘One day, maybe.’

‘Otherwise, you’re between jobs, is it?’

‘On the sick,’ Maiden said. ‘Road accident. What do you do, Cindy? When you’re not investigating serious crime.’

‘Oh, a jobbing thespian, I am. When I can get the work. And an entertainer when I can’t. Comedy.’

‘And this is all part of your routine, is it?’

Cindy’s piercing eyes glittered. ‘Don’t believe any of it, do you, lovely? You think I’m an old stirrer.’

‘I just think all you’ve got is a theory. You’ve no evidence at all. You don’t seem to have any possibility of getting evidence. Also, there’s the problem that ley lines haven’t been proved to exist.’

‘Ah, so you do have some knowledge of these things, then.’

‘We’re not all thick and prosaic.’

‘Artists?’ Cindy said blandly. ‘I never thought they were.’

Damn.

‘Well,’ Cindy said, ‘you may argue that the existence of leys has not been proved to the satisfaction of scientists, but I, in turn, would argue that this is irrelevant. All that matters, see, is that he believes. He is killing people on what the maps and his own intuition tell him are lines of earth-energy.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, Bobby, I could give you a dozen convincing explanations, each one dependent on the killer’s own conception of earth-lines and the uses of ancient sites. If he believes leys are spirit-paths, perhaps he feels he is releasing the spirits of his victims to stimulate the energy-flow. Perhaps he sees them as sacrifices. Perhaps he feels he is himself absorbing the energy of his victims.’

‘I just can’t hear it in court, somehow.’

Cindy leaned towards him, with a waft of lavender. ‘I tell you, Bobby, compared with the rippers who hear voices and Charles Manson, who believed he was in psychic contact with the Beatles, this person is utterly and coldly rational, according to his beliefs.’

More wheels in the yard brought Maiden to his feet.

A coffin passed across the window. He recoiled. The inside of his mouth felt instantly dry and rough. The hearse reversed and three-point-turned in the yard, under the broken castle walls.

He was aware of Cindy watching his reaction with great interest.

‘You’re trembling. Don’t like funerals, is it?’

‘Who does?’

‘Love them, we do, in Wales. You fascinate me, Bobby. You must’ve seen any number of corpses in your line of work.’

‘I’m not that kind of painter,’ Maiden said.

Cindy laughed. ‘Oh, Bobby, so cautious. Talk to me, lovely, you know you want to.’

The hearse waited under the window, a man in a black suit got out. Cindy stood up and moved to the door. ‘Shall we bring the old lady in for a moment? Lay the coffin on that oak table in the hall?’ Cindy looked back at Maiden from the doorway and raised a surprisingly heavy eyebrow.

Maiden flinched.

‘I just have dreams. Since this road accident. About what it’s like to be dead.’

‘Oh?’

‘After the accident, I was dead for over four minutes. They brought me back.’

‘My,’ said Cindy.

‘That’s all it is.’

‘All? That’s a very big thing to happen.’

‘Not as big as murder,’ Maiden said. ‘How could the old girl possibly have been murdered?’

‘What brought on the stroke?’ Cindy said. ‘That’s what we should be asking.’

Maiden thought about black light and said nothing.

‘There are more crimes in heaven and earth,’ said Cindy, ‘than will ever be recorded on police computers.’

Cindy’s vague sense of unease about the funeral was reflected in the brittle smile of the vicar, who greeted Marcus with a perfunctory handshake.

Big and red-faced, the vicar was the country-parson type you rarely seemed to find any more; you imagined him drinking copious amounts of port, going off hunting with the nobs.

This vicar would like it here. A nice, discreet little church. Set back from the centre of the village on a small, grassy mound, possibly prehistoric, it had a strong, ancient resonance in its rusty pink stone, its squat tower glistening in the slow rain. You wouldn’t prise this vicar out of here; any guilty feeling that he really ought to be helping to rehabilitate drug addicts in Brixton would be very firmly sat on.

Marcus looked ill at ease in a creased grey suit and a floppy black bow tie. And Bobby …

Bobby was turned away from the mourners under their umbrellas. Bobby was gazing up at some sort of gargoyle set into the gable of the church porch. There was a sudden heaviness around him. He was very still.

A strange boy. Two things apparent: he was not the nephew of Marcus Bacton. And he was, or had been, connected with the police.

Cindy, who had replaced his red beret with a black one and wore a black suede jacket buttoned over the lambs on his jumper, wandered over and followed the boy’s gaze. At once, his unease became solid; breath piled into his chest so hard he choked.

‘Sorry.’ Pulling a handkerchief from his sleeve. Oh lord. Oh heavens . Chipped and pockmarked he might be, but there was no mistaking him. Old foliage-face himself.

‘What’s that, Cindy?’

‘A Green Man, Bobby. It’s a Green Man.’

‘Which is …’ His voice cracked. ‘… what?’

‘He isn’t anybody in particular. Simply the Green Man. A symbol often found on ancient churches. No-one knows what he signifies. Fertility, perhaps. Quite … quite terrifying, isn’t he? Why does he bother you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you’ve seen him before.’

He breathed out, didn’t reply.

‘In a dream, perhaps? In one of your dreams?’

He closed his eyes. He shook. His face was grey. He looked as if he might pass out. Several of the thirty or so mourners had noticed his discomfort. The locals. The ones with farmer-faces, red-veined and weathered.

The mourners began to filter into the church, a few likely relatives pausing to speak to Marcus, the locals avoiding him as you would a cranky old bull.

‘Go home, Bobby,’ Cindy said gently. ‘Not your day for a funeral. You’ll only upset people.’

Roger Falconer had apologized that he had a commitment this afternoon. Anxious, however, that Grayle’s article should be a true reflection of his work and his ideas, he’d invited her to dinner.

Grayle had thought uh-oh. Thanked him but pointed out she had some people to see tonight. Maybe some other time …

‘Wise decision, probably,’ Adrian said, seeing her out. ‘Bit of a ladies’ man, old Roger. I mean, not that … you know …’

Grayle smiled. Adrian was just about the most English person she’d ever met. He’d shown her round the centre, which essentially was confined to the outbuildings and Portakabins. She’d seen the Geiger counters and magnetometers they used to measure radiation and electro-magnetism in old stones, the infrared cameras and video equipment for capturing anomalous light effects and related phenomena.

‘I will admit,’ Adrian said, ‘that it’s become rather an obsession with me to show that our so-called primitive ancestors had an instinctive grasp of scientific principles our society is only just starting to reach. And to show that, compared with Neolithic people, we’re hardly alive any more. We’re just not in touch with our surroundings. Roger understands this very well, he just likes to play devil’s advocate.’