Stephen Irwin - The Darkening

‘Thank you for coming, Mr Close.’

She turned, again with a grace belying her weariness, and hurried to her car to follow her husband’s casket.

Nicholas looked around for his mother and sister, but they were gone.

He watched the remaining mourners drift away in twos and threes. In just a few moments, he felt awkwardly exposed, like a desperate adolescent still standing on the dance floor that all others have vacated at the first beats of an unpopular tune.

‘I saw you looking.’

The unexpected voice behind him made Nicholas jump.

It was the young reverend. Nicholas saw he had misjudged his age. He was probably closer to forty than thirty.

‘Looking at what?’

‘At our Green Man.’

Nicholas steadied himself. ‘At your what?’

‘Our Green Man. Jack the Green. Green George.’ The minister extended his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Pritam Anand.’

‘Nicholas Close.’

The reverend inclined his head; he knew who Nicholas was. ‘News travels fast. Bad news travels fastest.’

‘I’m bad news?’ asked Nicholas.

Reverend Anand laughed, then looked around to check there were no mourners he might have offended. ‘News of what happened to Gavin Boye, I meant. A tragedy.’

Nicholas nodded, and looked at Anand’s red cheek. ‘Not a bad right hook for an old bird.’

Anand touched the spot where Mrs Boye had slapped him. ‘Some people get upset when a loved one passes.’ He inclined his head again, a very Indian gesture that Nicholas was sure induced parishioners to share secrets they’d rather keep.

The rain, which had been politely holding off, started falling again.

‘You’re getting wet,’ said Nicholas.

‘Then join me inside.’

‘There,’ said Reverand Anand, pointing. Nicholas followed his finger. Below the angular capital of the column was carved stonework: ivy leaves, fernery and a long face with oak-leaf tusks sprouting from the corners of its mouth. ‘And there,’ he pointed out another on the pillar’s twin. ‘And there.’ In the carved forest curling ripe behind Christ crucified, another.

He sat on the front pew, drinking white tea. Nicholas sat beside him, drinking his black. The church, empty of everyone except the two men, felt to Nicholas suddenly huge and much colder. Hardly any light came through the tall, narrow stained-glass windows. The sheaves of stone of the roof killed the sound of the rain. This is what it must feel like to enter an Egyptian tomb , he thought. Familiar, yet foreign. Cold and stony. And a sense of being watched by eyes ancient and not quite human.

‘What are they? These Green Men?’ he asked.

Anand smiled. ‘He is one entity, Jack the Green. Have you been to Europe? You’ll find him in lots of churches there. Many, many in England; but also Germany, Poland.’ He sipped his tea and looked over the cup’s rim in a way that reminded Nicholas of his mother. ‘But go further and you’ll find similar images of this face — part man, part tree — in Nepal, India, Borneo.’

‘It’s not Christian?’

Anand laughed. ‘Oh, no. His origins long predate Christ. His is a pagan image.’ He smiled with barely disguised delight.

‘I’ve seen it before,’ said Nicholas.

Anand nodded, but said nothing for a long while.

‘It is a disturbingly familiar face.’ He cast his own gaze upward to the Green Man on the carved ceiling boss, then down to Christ crucified. ‘The timeless man who dies each year and is reborn. Who symbolises triumph over winter and death.’

‘Which? Jesus? Or the Green Man?’

‘Exactly,’ replied Anand. He turned to Nicholas, a small frown on his smooth forehead. ‘A man killed himself right in front of you, Mr Close. Maybe he tried to kill you, too.’ He shrugged, as if to say, not my business. ‘But how are you feeling?’

The sudden change of tack caught Nicholas off guard.

‘I have a shitty headache,’ he said before he had a chance to think. ‘Not as bad as Gavin’s, perhaps. But still. .’

The young reverend nodded, but said nothing. The men drank their tea in silence a moment.

‘Where’s that slack black bastard?’ called an older voice. Reverend Hird bustled into the room. ‘There!’ he roared accusingly. ‘Slacking!’ He looked to Nicholas as if to a fellow witness of gross injustice.

‘When are you going to die?’ asked Anand pleasantly.

‘Never! And when I do, I’ll haunt you anyway,’ replied Reverend Hird. He looked at Nicholas. ‘You the chap that Boye shot himself in front of?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bad business,’ said Hird, then gestured for his colleague to come along. ‘We have an evening service to prepare for, you slack, slacking savage.’ The old man entered the rectory.

Anand smiled at Nicholas. ‘Reverend John Hird. He was in Korea. His approach to death is somewhat matter-of-fact.’ He stood and extended his hand to Nicholas. They shook.

‘It’s a funny thing, Christianity.’

‘An Indian Christian pastor certainly is unusual,’ said Nicholas.

‘Reverend,’ he corrected. ‘Next time we meet, call me Pritam.’ He smiled and followed his superior, calling over his shoulder, ‘And India has well over twenty million Christians. More than the entire population of this country.’ He smiled again and closed the rectory door behind him.

Nicholas sat alone under the carved eyes of Christ and the Green Man.

Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord.

Their stony stares unnerved him.

He stood and quickly left.

Nicholas entered the house through the back door, carrying a posy of store-bought flowers. Suzette watched as he gave them to Katharine and told her he had moved out into a flat. Katharine nodded, put the flowers on the kitchen sink, went to her bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Nicholas looked at Suzette. ‘I know they were cheap flowers, but honestly. .’

Suzette narrowed her eyes at her brother. Katharine was angry with Nicholas, and Suzette couldn’t blame her. The two women had spent hours after dinner last night arguing over whether or not to telephone the police and report Nicholas missing. Suzette had had the final word, saying that enough police had been to 68 Lambeth Street in the last week, and Nicholas was probably out on a bender and that might be a good thing. But she’d never guessed he’d gone and found a flat without telling anyone.

Nicholas explained about seeing Gavin’s suiciding ghost every time he opened the door, and Suzette’s anger ebbed a little.

‘I know you couldn’t tell Mum that. But you could have told me.’

‘I’m telling you now. Besides, Mum never seemed too keen about having me back.’

‘Uh-huh. Did you consider it might not be you that’s worried her? The night you get back, a child goes missing and is murdered. A couple of days later, a face from the past knocks on her front door and blows his head off. Can you blame her for being a little fragile? Anyway. Here. .’

Suzette reached into her bag and pulled out her notebook. She flipped it open to the page on which she’d copied the rune that they’d found faintly carved into the health food store’s doorframe. She looked up. Nicholas was staring at the sketch with an odd expression on his face. ‘It’s the mark from Mrs Quill’s old shop door.’

‘Oh,’ he said quietly.

‘It is a rune. I looked it up.’ She flipped to the next page and read from her scribbled notes. ‘The third rune, Thurisaz, takes its name from the god Thor, from which is derived the old English word Thorn. But the rune has other meanings, including Protection and Devil. It’s not a rune to be trifled with. Thurisaz is the most difficult and potentially dangerous of the runes of Elder Futhark. Only a strong will can control it; it will control the weak. It is a war rune. It is associated with the colour red for blood.’ She looked up at her brother. He was staring out the window. ‘Did you hear that? Was it a bit boring for you?’