Phil Rickman - The Cold Calling

‘Maybe it was just an emotional reaction,’ Grayle said. ‘Probably the way I was feeling that day. I’d hoped to get some hard information about where Ersula could be, and I didn’t. Call it personal negativity. Nothing scientific.’

‘Because, you see, Grayle, this is a holy place . It’s not supposed to be … cosy. Any more than a great cathedral is. It’s an integral part of a huge, sacred pattern. Nobody, not even Roger, denies that any more. It’s another level. Another Britain. Which we’re only just finding our way around again.’

‘Right.’ Maybe it’s because Britain is so small, Grayle thought. If they want to discover anything new about it, it has to be on some invisible level.

‘And what we don’t understand, we naturally fear — people are just as primitive in that way as they ever were, they’re just more shielded from the dark. It’s a fear we’re jolly well going to have to conquer, those of us who want to evolve. All kinds of fears, all kind of blocks … we’re going to have to break through them. If we’re going to get in tune with the earth again. Before it’s too late.’

‘Aw, gee.’ Grayle pulled the gear lever to low, for a steep downward slope. How to put this … how to tell him she’d heard all this before. ‘See, you guys, you come on like, We got to tune in to holy places, we got to recover our lost knowledge, our forgotten ancient wisdom … Jesus, I used to talk like this all the time.’

‘And that’s the problem, isn’t it?’ Adrian put his big, warm hand over hers on the lever. ‘It’s all talk . It’s just a coffee table thing. So few people do anything. Imagine if the druids had simply … you know … theorized. Gosh, for them it was real life … life and death. So if the Rollrights feel sort of brooding, that’s why.’

‘Uh, why?’ Grayle felt herself blushing, tugged her hand back to the wheel.

‘Because it’s been a working site. It isn’t all manicured and prettified like some monuments. Some of the New Age people would be absolutely horrified if they actually knew what it was like in the ancient days. They all think it was some sort of Golden Age and perhaps it was, but it was a cruel age too. Or rather people today might think of it as cruel, but it was necessary.’

‘You mean sacrifices.’

As they drove into the Cotswolds, the countryside was lightening up, the stone becoming golden against a white sky like the fluffy lining in a jewel box.

‘People try to close their eyes to it, Grayle. They say, Oh, even in the degenerate period when the priests practised human sacrifice, they only sacrificed criminals who deserved it. Well, what kind of a sacrifice is that? That’s not sacrifice, it’s execution . Surely, it’s only a real sacrifice if you give up the life of someone you don’t hate, who hasn’t done you any personal harm. And perhaps the ultimate sacrifice is to take, well … the life of a friend, I suppose.’

‘But when would it be worth losing a friend for?’

‘Oh, that’s just a modern attitude. Look at the Bible. God tested Abraham’s faith, his absolute conviction, by asking for the blood of his son. And off they went to a high place, a holy site, and they built an altar and Abraham took a knife …’

‘But that was just a test, surely. God never intended him to follow through.’

‘Depends how you look at it. Abraham was being shown that if he ever wanted true wisdom — to walk with the gods … I mean, people in several civilizations did sacrifice their children.’

‘Plus, this was the Old Testament God. Pre-Christ. We progressed from that stuff.’

‘But we didn’t progress, did we?’

‘In a lot of ways we did. Did Christ ask for blood sacrifices?’

‘Grayle, Christ was a blood sacrifice.’

This was all getting a little heavy for Grayle. After yesterday, she needed to lighten up. She’d hoped being with Adrian … good-looking guy, for heaven’s sake, rough-hewn, country-boy charm. Why’d he have to be so intense about all this? And who did that remind you of?

‘You talk about all this stuff with Ersula?’

‘Ersula understood. As an anthropologist. Oh yes, we’d talk for hours and hours.’

‘And Roger? Would she talk for hours with Roger?’

‘You’re asking me if she had an affair with Roger.’

‘You told me yesterday she left in a hurry.’

Well, you know … I mean …’

Adrian looked uncomfortable. Jesus, he was fine talking about ancient blood ritual and sacrificing your kids, but you changed the subject to, like, contemporary sexual relations, he got embarrassed.

‘… I suppose it’s possible.’

‘I know it’s possible , Adrian, but did it happen ?’

Adrian swallowed, and Grayle began to see how it might have been: Adrian majorly turned on by Ersula, by her intensity, her passion for the past, the very stuff that put most guys off. But Ersula finds Adrian a little raw and gauche, especially up against Roger … smooth, eloquent, experienced … the kind of man who could intellectualize his way right into your pants.

Perhaps Falconer had it right; you needed to hunt, you needed the friction, the wind of the chase just to keep on living.

Maiden had come on foot. Cefn-y-bedd was less than a mile from Castle Farm, along the path towards the meadow, but instead of going up towards the Knoll you detoured down a half-overgrown footpath, over a stile and into the woods.

He felt a sharp edge of purpose. The fresh air sang with sensation. There was a light rain of crinkling leaves. Birds, probably undisturbed for months, flew for the exits. A squirrel sped across the path in front of him.

It was a curious state of mind. Not at all happy, but hyper-aware, so alive it ached. He was hunting Falconer, a man with a lot of questions to answer.

And yet, he kept looking behind him.

Leaves rustled in his wake. Twigs snapped. It was probably wildlife. Rabbits, birds. Not many people came this way; the wildlife would be spooked.

But he kept looking over his shoulder.

Quite a heavy crunch this time, and he spun round and thought he saw a face framed in foliage, and thought, in shock, Green Man, Green Man, Green Man .

The Green Man hunting him .

And then there was big noise everywhere and he didn’t know where to run as, with this huge, angry clattering, a helicopter, white and red, lifted up, apparently out of the centre of the wood, not fifty yards away, in a golden storm of October leaves.

Crows rose screaming. The helicopter hovered under the sheet of the sky, rotors churning. The helicopter was very hard-edged and real.

It meant that Roger Falconer was leaving.

Maiden breathed out slowly, in dismay. ‘Thank you. Thanks a bunch, Roger.’

The machine was directly above him now, and he instinctively bent and moved forward in a crouch, through the trees, and found he was on the edge of a clearing, with a big slab of flat, flesh-coloured concrete at its centre. He walked around the clearing, keeping close to the trees, watched the chopper banking, heading off south.

The crows calmed down. His spirits sagged. What would he have done anyway? Flashed his ID and hoped Falconer hadn’t heard the radio this morning?

It was all so flimsy, so fanciful. As the noise dwindled to a distant drone, he sat on a mossed and slimy fallen branch, head in his hands, the way he’d sat last night by the well at Collen Hall.

So convenient . So conveniently timed. Just hours after Cindy airs his wild theory about the mystical killer who needs to spill blood at holy places, the killer strikes again. Under Maiden’s nose.