Phil Rickman - The Cold Calling
Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Phil Rickman - The Cold Calling» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Триллер, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.
- Название:The Cold Calling
- Автор:
- Жанр:
- Год:неизвестен
- ISBN:нет данных
- Рейтинг книги:5 / 5. Голосов: 1
-
Избранное:Добавить в избранное
- Отзывы:
-
Ваша оценка:
- 100
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
The Cold Calling: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Cold Calling»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.
The Cold Calling — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком
Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Cold Calling», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.
Интервал:
Закладка:
‘Known as an outlier, this is.’ Cindy set down his suitcase outside the rails. ‘We often find them in the vicinity of stone circles, but set apart. For astronomical reasons usually, or it gives you a line on the rising sun. Not sure about this chap, never having worked here before.’
Maybe once, the King Stone and the Rollright circle had been part of the same prehistoric observatory or whatever it was, but now they were separated by a road and a hedge and part of a wood.
Cindy opened the case, brought out a rolled-up woollen mat. Maiden opened the gate in the railings and Cindy carried the mat through and spread it out next to the King Stone. The mat displayed an interwoven Celtic design, such as you saw on ancient crosses.
‘Far as I’m concerned, Bobby, if they call this the King Stone and the circle’s known as the King’s Men, then this old chap has to be the boss. Getting better feelings, I am, from him, certainly. He hates these bars, but he’s kept his distance from some of the bad things that’ve happened in the circle. Hasn’t been tampered with much. Kept his integrity, see. I think I can work with him.’
Maiden and Grayle watched him in sceptical silence. Against a luminous backdrop of the most malign combination of dusk and stormclouds Maiden ever recalled, every hole and hollow and crevice in the King Stone was clearly defined.
This seemed crazy, time-wasting, probably irresponsible. Logically, Maiden thought, what they should be doing was simply calling the police.
‘Who would send two cars. Maybe three, if they were informed that the murderer Bobby Maiden was here. And then what? They’d arrest him, and he’d try to explain in the little time they had. It was impossible. Convincing even sensitive, reborn Maiden had taken many hours, plus the discovery of a woman’s body in a concrete grave.
‘So what’s going to happen?’ He was tense, restless, the impending storm getting to his nerves. Desperate to move , flush out Fraser-Hale. Needed to see him. To know the disease.
‘I’m going to talk to the storm,’ Cindy said.
‘I see,’ Maiden said.
‘Do you?’
‘No.’
‘All right, Bobby. Very quickly: weather control. Marcus knows more about the scientific side of this than me, and I wish we had him with us. But the electrical storm is a terrific source of energy, the most powerful phenomenon in nature’s bag of tricks, and there is evidence that Neolithic people sought to control storms — using megalithic circles — and perhaps to store the energy so that rain could be summoned when it was needed.’
‘How would they use stone circles?’
‘Because they’re invariably sited at places where underground streams intersect, places which are likely to attract bolts of lightning seeking to discharge themselves in the earth. Grayle, this cricket bag of Adrian’s, could it have contained, for instance, rods of iron, or copper?’
‘I guess.’
‘When you were in or around the circle, did you see anything of that nature sticking out of the ground, anywhere?’
‘I don’t recall … I’m sorry, what would they be for?’
‘Lightning conductors, perhaps? Bobby, if you remember, when he is discussing the circumstances of the killing of the birdwatcher, he talks of dismissing clouds and also creating them. By willpower and meditation, yes? So we know he’s studied weather control. Suppose he’s convinced himself he can bring about, by force of will, an electrical storm, like the one in Mr Turner’s picture? Suppose he’s been working on this for quite a considerable time … with this little gathering in mind.’
Grayle backed off from the King Stone. ‘At a wedding? That’s what he meant by sacrificing friends?’
‘I don’t know. This is speculation. Adrian’s view of our remote ancestors has them as rather less practical and scientific and agriculturally minded than we would perhaps like to think. A storm, as your picture demonstrates, is a dynamic killing-force.’
‘Aw, come on,’ Grayle said. ‘He’s just a guy.’
‘Practical guy, though,’ Maiden said.
‘And, at the risk of sounding religious,’ Cindy said, ‘history has shown that individuals who wish to do evil can seemingly attract to themselves an element of, shall we say, back-up. But I don’t want to talk like this. I don’t want to court your scepticism. Let’s just say that if there’s a grain of truth here, we can do three things. We can find Adrian Fraser-Hale and … constrain him. We can stop this wedding. And we can try to hold off the storm meanwhile. Do you see?’
Maiden didn’t see, not really. Adrian was not like Cindy; he was a nuts-and-bolts man; he was practical. ‘Still,’ he told Grayle as they crossed the road between a couple of dozen parked cars, to get back to the circle, ‘you learn not to dismiss anything Cindy comes up with.’
When they took a final look back at the King Stone, there was a big red thing on top with wings and bulbous eyes you could see even from this distance. Cindy must have stood on his suitcase to prop it up there.
‘What the hell is that, Bobby?’
‘I think it’s Kelvyn Kite. His, er, shamanistic totem creature. Something like that. Don’t think about it, you’ll only lose confidence.’
They turned left into the small wood which hid the entrance to the circle. The congregation was hushed. The two candles flickered innocently.
‘OK,’ Grayle whispered. ‘I’m gonna be straight with you. I don’t know what to believe.’
‘Like I said, a problem you tend to have, around Cindy.’ Maiden dropped behind the wooden hut.
‘No. Listen to me,’ Grayle said. ‘Ersula. Do you know she’s dead?’
Her lower face was in shadow. Her eyes, through a soft tumble of hair, were bright with pleading.
‘I …’
‘Bobby, I just need to hear what you believe is the truth.’
‘Well. A body’s been uncovered at Cefn-y-bedd. In the ground. It’s a young woman. Very light, blond hair.’
‘Oh … OK …’ Steadying her voice. ‘That’s … that’s …’
‘I don’t know her, do I? But he says he killed her.’
‘You talked to him? When?’
‘He left tapes. He talks all the details into a recorder. At the High Knoll burial chamber. Laying down his own EVP for posterity. That make sense to you?’
‘Like a confession.’
‘More like a celebration.’
‘Friends!’ From the circle, the minister’s voice rose up, loud and relaxed. ‘We’re gathered here today in the sight of God — Oh, yes, it is! … whatever some of you might think about stone circles …’
Laughter.
Grayle said, ‘And the woman … when he thought he’d killed me?’
‘Was called Emma Curtis. She was my friend. Close friend. She was the woman who collected me last night at Castle Farm, while you were there. It was going dark like now, and she had … light hair, and he thought it was you. He’d followed you down from the Knoll — that was your mistake, the Knoll is his — and he climbed into his Land Rover and he tailed us. To a hotel. And later … when she was on her own … he … he killed her. After he discovered the hotel was at the crossing point of two leys. Serendipity.’
The minister said joyfully, ‘To join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony!’
‘How did he kill her?’
‘With a carpet knife.’
‘Jesus. And Ersula?’
‘We … can’t be sure. It’ll take a post-mortem. But …’
He waited.
‘The cause of death may be … a kind of suffocation.’
She shook a little. She didn’t want to hear any more. ‘You’re not lying to me, are you?’
‘I swear to God I’m not lying to you.’
Читать дальшеИнтервал:
Закладка:
Похожие книги на «The Cold Calling»
Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Cold Calling» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.
Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Cold Calling» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.