Eric Brown - Kéthani

I nodded, guessing what was coming.

“Followed?” Doug said, his professional interest aroused.

“For about a month or so now,” Matt said, “‘I’ve been seeing… well, I don’t know if you’ll understand…”

“Try us,” Khalid said.

“Well, I’ve been seeing bright, white figures lurking at the edge of my vision, which mysteriously disappear when I try to look closer…”

I said, “And you saw another figure tonight, right?”

Matt took a long draught of creamy ale and nodded. He explained to Khalid and Doug, “In the hall, towards the end of the rehearsal. I saw something… a figure… near the door to the kitchen and cloakroom, but when I went to have a look… Nothing. It’d vanished.”

Doug said, “Tell us more about these figures.”

“There isn’t much more to tell,” Matt said. “I’ve seen about half a dozen of them now, approximately once a week. Tall, glowing figures, watching me—or that’s what I feel they’re doing. And when I investigate, they’re gone in a flash of light.”

Something about the expression on Doug’s big, jowly face prompted me to ask, “What?”

“It’s strange,” he said, staring into the remains of his pint with a distant expression, “but remember the murder of Sarah Roberts a few years ago?”

Khalid said, “Wasn’t she something to do with the Onward Station?”

Doug nodded. “A liaison officer. Anyway, I investigated the case. Very mysterious.” He gave a gruff laugh. “Like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. Roberts was found dead in a house surrounded by snow—no footprints leading to or from the place. Also,” he looked up at me, “Ben Knightly reported seeing a great beam of light, almost like a meteorite’s tail, fall into the valley where the farmhouse was, on the night she was killed.”

Matt stared at him. “And? Was the case ever solved?”

“It’s odd, but I always thought there was something strange about the affair. As if certain aspects of it were hushed up. Oh, officially it was explained —we found that the killer had probably stowed himself in the house before the snow fell, and then escaped later when the snow on the path to the house had been thoroughly churned. But it was never solved. The killer was never found. And do you know something, I’ve always had a strange feeling about that case—as if there was more involved than met the eye.”

“Like what?” Khalid wanted to know.

“Well, I heard rumours much later that Sarah Roberts wasn’t human at all, but a Kéthani emissary, keeping an eye on things on Earth.”

“But why would anyone want her dead?” I asked, amazed.

Doug shrugged his big, bison-like shoulders. “I honestly don’t know. It’s almost as if, when I think about it, I’m prevented from recollecting the events with any clarity.”

Khalid hummed the signature tune from an old sci-fi TV show. “Creepy. And you think that Matt’s mysterious figure and white light might be linked?”

Doug looked at the priest. “Do you have you any idea what they might be, Matt? Any theories?”

Matt stared into the leaping flames of the log fire, as if contemplating whether to tell us what he was thinking. He looked up, at each of us in turn. “I don’t expect you to share my conviction, gentlemen, but it occurred to me that they just might be angels.”

He drained his pint, excused himself on the grounds of a sick parishioner, and left the three of us staring at each other in wonderment.

On Thursday evening I finished practising around nine and decided to pop into the Fleece for a quick one.

Khalid and Doug, Ben and Elisabeth, along with Richard Lincoln and Dan Chester, the local ferrymen, were encamped around the table beside the fire. The topic of conversation, not surprisingly, was Matt and his angels.

“Do you think he’s going off his rocker?” Elisabeth asked.

“You know these religious types,” Dan said. He’d been married to a Catholic who’d refused to have their daughter, Lucy, implanted. He viewed all religions that were opposed to the Kéthani with suspicion, and it had taken him a while to welcome Matt into the fold.

“I’m concerned,” Khalid said. “Matt doesn’t seem to be himself these days.”

“Well, neither would you if you were seeing angels!” Elisabeth said.

“I think the hallucinations are manifestations of… I don’t know… stress, overwork.” Khalid looked at me. “What do you think, Andy? You know him well. He always seems hale and hearty, but what is he like when he isn’t…” he smiled and said, “performing?”

I laughed. “Do you know something? I think he always is performing.”

“Even when alone?” Elisabeth asked.

“Is a man who believes, as Matt does,” I speculated, “ever alone?”

“You mean he’s performing before his God?” Dan said, sarcastically. “Nice one.”

Elisabeth stared into her Belgian lager. “What do you expect from a religion that doesn’t allow its clergy to express their sexual desires? It’s a wonder he isn’t hallucinating Playboy centrefolds.”

“Anyway,” I said, in an attempt to bring the conversation back into line. “I don’t mind saying that I’m worried for Matt. Let’s keep an eye on him, okay?”

We all nodded and agreed.

Towards closing time, I noticed that Khalid was looking somewhat pensive.

“A penny for them,” I said.

“Oh, I was just remembering something. You recall a while back, Matt said something along the lines that the Kéthani are in the power of God?”

I nodded. “It struck me as bizarre, too.”

“Well… What he said just doesn’t sit with what I experienced on Kéthan, with what I learned.”

“Go on.” Conversation around the table had ceased, and all eyes were on Khalid.

“The odd thing is, when I look back on my experience of resurrection on Kéthan, to be honest I can’t actually recall exactly what happened.” He smiled. “I learned a lot about myself. I became a better human being. And I know I absorbed philosophies, too. Anyway, the abiding impression I gained is that the Kéthani don’t believe in a spiritual afterlife. I gathered that they think the foundation of the universe is purely materialistic. That’s why they go about the universe, bestowing immortality upon ‘lesser’ races…” He shrugged. “I think Matt’s deluding himself.”

Elisabeth said, “But you said yourself that you don’t have a perfect recollection of what happened.”

He nodded. “I know. And perhaps I’m wrong. But that doesn’t make me any the less worried for Matt, though.”

As we were leaving the pub that evening, Elisabeth caught up with me and said, “About Matt, Andy—you’re seriously concerned?”

I said reassuringly, “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Elisabeth.”

Three days later, though, I had cause to revise that opinion.

I was driving home from a job in Leeds, taking the treacherous moor road towards Bradley. The roads had been gritted the night before, but were still icy in patches, and the undulating countryside on either hand was resplendent with snow in the light of the setting sun.

I was a couple of miles from Oxenworth when I saw the old Micra.

It had veered off the lane and into the ditch, and the driver’s door was flung open. I slowed as I approached. There was no sign of the driver or any other occupant.

I braked and only then realised that I recognised the vehicle. It was Matt’s. The mental alarm bells started ringing.

I jumped from my car and strode over to the little red car, half expecting to find Matt collapsed in the ditch.

He wasn’t, but what I found was perhaps even more worrying. A set of footprints led away from the abandoned vehicle, up the snow-covered grass verge towards a stile. On the other side, I made out the footsteps disappearing off up the rise of a field.