October skies

CHAPTER 38

Tuesday

Fulham, London

The phone rang only a couple of times before a deep voice answered it. ‘Dr Thomas Griffith.’

‘Tom, it’s Julian Cooke.’

A moment’s hesitation passed. ‘Julian…’ Then, ‘Julian! How the hell are you?’

‘I’m well, Tom, very well.’

Julian had worked with him a few years ago on their series Uncommon People. Dr Griffith was a forensic psychologist who freelanced for the Met, on occasion for the Crown Prosecution Service and, more often these days, he also found himself contributing the foreword to books on hard-case East End gangsters and the criminally insane. His last collaboration had been with a crime novelist, co-writing a book on Harold Shipman.

The book was doing very well. Julian had noticed it piled high on the centre tables of Waterstones and Borders, and spotted Thomas on daytime TV shamelessly plugging it. Thomas was made for TV; a gregarious character, a large and generously covered frame and an enormously deep voice finely tuned to deliver a Welsh accent.

It was all going very well for Thomas, right now.

‘What are you up to these days, Julian?’ his baritone voice boomed down the line.

Julian sucked on his teeth. He knew the call was going to involve eating a small helping of humble pie.

‘Not as much as I’d like. Business is still coming in, but you know what it’s like; a lot less money sloshing around the TV business these days.’

‘Indeed.’

‘I saw your book. Doing very well, I see.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? I’m quite taken aback. There’ll be more, I hope.’

Julian smiled. ‘Oh, I’m sure there will be. Publishers love to keep backing a winner.’ Actually he was pleased for the lucky bastard. Good fortune couldn’t have fallen into the lap of a nicer bloke.

‘Tom, look, apart from wanting to hear the melted-chocolate tones of your voice again, there’s another reason I rang.’

Griffith chuckled. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s something I sort of stumbled upon by accident over in America. Before I go into too much detail, this is between us and no one else, do you understand?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m not going to need to send you a confidentiality agreement, am I?’ Julian asked cautiously. He trusted the man more than most. Thomas’s word had been good in the past when they’d worked together. But it would be reassuring to hear him make a verbal promise.

‘On my mother’s grave, Julian.’

‘Okay.’

Julian explained what he and Rose had found, careful not to tell him exactly where it was. Only Grace knew the precise location, and for now he wanted to keep it that way. He described the Lambert journal, and summarised the tale he had transcribed thus far. Dr Griffith patiently listened in silence as Julian talked through it for nearly three-quarters of an hour.

‘Well now, Julian, what’re you asking for? A diagnosis over the phone?’

‘Yes, but I’d like to back it up with a meeting. Perhaps, if you’re interested, involve you in the documentary somehow.’

‘Well, I’m… I’m-’

‘Sorry, Tom, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. I know you’re busy right now promoting the book-’

‘No,’ he cut in, ‘no… I’m interested, Julian. I’m fascinated. I’d very much like to be a part of this. I mean, to all intents and purposes, if we’re ruling out Indian wood spirits and giant grizzly bears, it sounds very much like you have a reliable account of an interesting mystery.’

‘Yes. That’s what I thought.’

‘And this journal sounds like wonderfully detailed material to work from.’

‘It is very detailed. I mean, the author obviously had a lot of time to fill, waiting to die up in those mountains. So look… I presume we’re both thinking it’s the same person?’

‘The religious leader chappie.’

‘Uh-huh, Preston.’

He heard Griffith shuffling position, the sloshing of water in the background, and remembered the large Welshman kept his phone by his side, even in the bath.

‘A fascinating character by the sound of him. A classic cult patriarch, isn’t he?’

‘Yeah. Look, Tom, I can email you what I’ve transcribed already of the journal, and attach a load of jpeg images of the other pages I’ve yet to work through, if you’re interested in taking this further?’

‘Yes, please do.’

‘And then when you’ve had a chance to look through, perhaps we can arrange to get together for lunch and talk about it?’

‘That would be marvellous,’ Griffith boomed back.

‘Great. Your email address — still the same?’

‘As always.’

‘I’ll put “Preston” as the subject heading so you don’t miss it amidst all the spam.’

‘Very good.’

‘How long do you want to have with the material? Thing is, I’m here in the UK for another three days, then I’m heading back out to the States to rejoin Rose. We’ve got to move quite quickly.’

‘Why’s that? It’s sat around a century and a half already.’

‘We’ve got a grace period of a couple of weeks, courtesy of a kind old park ranger who’s sitting on it before she calls whatever US heritage department covers this kind of find. So, we’re scrambling around to get as much virgin footage of the site as we can.’

‘I see. Well, hmm… you’ve caught me at a good time. I could do with a break from the current routine. Give me a day with the notes, and then we’ll talk.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Oh, and Julian?’

‘Yup?’

‘Do you know how it ends? What do you know of what happened?’

‘As far as we can surmise, no one survived. There’s no record of it anywhere.’

‘Oh that’s good — somewhat chilling,’ he said, the water sloshing again. ‘I like that.’

Julian smiled. ‘I thought you would.’

‘Well, send me what you have, and then we’ll do lunch later on this week. I’ll make sure my publicist keeps Thursday and Friday lunchtimes free.’

‘I will. It’s been good to speak to you again, Tom. Been a while.’

‘And you.’

Dr Griffith hung up abruptly and the line purred. Julian was about to set his phone down when he heard the faintest click over the earpiece. The purring sound cut out momentarily and he thought he could detect, if only for a second or two, the rustling sound of movement picked up by an open microphone. Then another click, and the purr resumed.

He put the phone down, still looking at it.

‘That’s… that was odd,’ he muttered.

And not the first odd thing, either, is it?

Returning from a visit to the Soup Kitchen office earlier today, he had an inexplicable feeling that his flat had been entered. Not quite able to put his finger on the tiny, intangible details that made him think that — a book out of place, the mouse cable coiled differently around the back of the keyboard — he hadn’t been certain enough not to dismiss it as some sort of creeping paranoia.

But now this.

He looked again at the phone, long enough to convince himself that all he’d really heard was a digital gremlin on the network or, quite possibly, his line crossed with another for a fleeting moment.

He shook his head reproachfully. ‘Come on, Julian, get a grip.’