Midnight is a Lonely Place

LXXVI

Kate and Jon walked cautiously into the small living room and looked round. Bill’s body had gone, so had the police and after them the cleaners who had lifted the rugs, swept out the worst of the mud and opened the windows of the cottage to air. Relieved, Kate sighed. Somehow she had expected something to have remained of the aura – and the smell – of death, but the living room was more or less itself again, tidy and smelling only of damp.

She smiled at Jon. ‘I’ll go up and pack.’ He nodded. He glanced round the room. He had grown very quiet as they neared the cottage; almost brooding, staring at her now and then with a strange thoughtfulness.

It did not take long to pack her clothes and stack her books and papers in boxes. Later they were going to borrow another neighbour’s four-wheel drive to take it all back to the farmhouse. She took one last look around the cottage, listening to the silence, sniffing unconsciously for any hint of flowers or peat or Claudia’s jasmine scent. There was nothing. The cottage was empty. Reassured she pulled the door closed behind them and heard the lock click home.

The water had sunk slowly back out of the garden leaving a sea of mud. On the north side of the trees and bushes, large lumps of unmelted snow lurked, cushions of white in the damp undergrowth. The south wind after the days of ice-laden easterlies was a balm to the soul – sweet, gentle and almost warm. Jon glanced at Kate. ‘Do you want to see the grave before we go?’

She nodded. ‘I’d like to see what happened. The sea seems to have gone right back.’ Behind them the estuary sparkled in the sunlight covered by flocks of swimming birds.

They walked slowly towards the shore. Where there had been high, sweeping dunes of sand there was now a changed landscape: small, reshaped hillocks; mud; a high, drifted beach and everywhere a covering of tangled black weed, dredged from the bottom of the sea by the ferocious waves. A cloud of gulls rose from the stinking mass as cautiously they picked their way across it towards the spot where the excavations had been. They stood surveying the beach in silence.

‘It was about here, wasn’t it?’ Jon said at last.

Kate looked around. There were no landmarks now; the hump of the dune had gone; the declivity where she and Alison had crouched was no more. The sand all round them was scooped and moulded as though by a giant spoon into a series of smooth, scalloped humps.

She smiled, overwhelmed with relief. ‘It’s gone. There’s no sign of it.’

She had half expected to feel something of Marcus there – resentment, anger, fear – the insidious emotions of another age – but there was nothing. The air was fresh and cool and full of the cries of sea birds and the uneasy shushing of the waves against the sand.

‘It’s gone,’ she said again as he reached across and drew her hand into his.

To her surprise, he laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it hasn’t gone. Not quite. Look.’

It was a piece of twisted metal, torn from the depths of the sand once again and tossed and tangled with weed. Jon stooped and picked it up. ‘A torc. Your torc?’ He held it out to her.

She took it reluctantly. ‘I thought it had disappeared.’

A shadow on the sand, Nion waited, invisible. His torc, the torc Claudia had given to him, which he had flung as a gift to the gods lay, a twisted, corroded half moon of useless metal, in the hand of the living woman. He could feel himself drifting irresistibly towards them, the woman who held his torc and the man who loved her, the man who would give him strength.

Behind them Greg paused on the edge of the beach. Idiots. Couldn’t they leave well alone? He clenched his fists. Didn’t they understand? This was where it had happened. The Roman woman, Claudia, and her lover. Her British lover. Dead. Together. He narrowed his eyes in the glare off the sea. Two men in love with one woman. A story as old as time itself.

He limped towards them slowly, and almost guiltily, Jon dropped Kate’s hand.

‘You realise that it was another man who came between them,’ Greg said, chattily, as he reached them. ‘Why else would Marcus want to kill his beautiful wife?’ He took the torc out of Kate’s hands and turned it round, staring down at it, picking off the sticky, clinging weed. ‘Why do you suppose we haven’t heard from him: the lover? Marcus did kill him as well, didn’t he?’ His eyes strayed from Kate’s face to Jon’s.

Behind them, shadows in the wind, Nion and Claudia drew closer. Soon they would be together.

‘Let’s go back, Greg.’ Kate stepped away from him towards the sea, feeling the wind pull her hair away from her face. ‘The grave itself has gone. There’s nothing to see.’

Greg was staring down at the torc in his hand, his grey-green eyes veiled. ‘They are here,’ he whispered. ‘Marcus is here and Claudia, and so is the other, the lover. I can feel them. They are trapped here on this beach together. An eternal triangle.’

‘Greg -’ Kate interrupted him uneasily. ‘Let’s go back.’

‘Why?’ There was open hostility in his gaze.

‘Because it’s late. Jon and I have to go. We have a long journey back to London.’

‘No.’ He turned away from them and stared out to sea. ‘No, I don’t think so. You don’t like London, remember?’

Jon frowned, eyeing the other man with caution. Surreptitiously he put his hand on Kate’s arm and pulled her away. ‘Let’s go,’ he whispered, his words almost lost in the rush of the sea. Nodding, she turned to follow him, but Greg had noticed. He swung round and his eyes were alight with anger. ‘No. You’re not going anywhere.’

He could feel Marcus so clearly now. Close. Pushing. Eager.

‘Don’t be stupid, Greg,’ Kate’s voice was sharp. ‘We are leaving. If you want to stay, that’s up to you.’ She began to walk inland, turning her back on the place where the excavation had been.

Behind them Greg was staring once more down at the torc. Suddenly his eyes were full of tears. He couldn’t fight it much longer. Marcus and Kate. He couldn’t cope with both. He stumbled after her. ‘You can’t go,’ he called. ‘I won’t let you. This was sent here to hold you – ’

Jon swung round. He released Kate’s arm abruptly, his anger bubbling to the surface at last. ‘That is enough, Greg! Kate has told you. She is going. You mean nothing to her.’ Angrily he snatched the torc from the other man’s hands. ‘This has caused enough trouble. Now it is going back where it belongs.’ Lifting his arm he flung the torc into the air. As it landed in the heaving greyness of the water, he felt anger sweeping over him uncontrolled.

Terrified, he tried to master it.

It was red, vicious. Blind.

Ecstatic.

He wrestled with it frantically, staggering back from the sea’s edge, clutching at his head, hearing nothing but the raging of the waves. He did not see Kate’s terror as the swirl of jasmine-scented dust settled over her.

‘Jon!’ He heard her voice distantly; it was frightened; screaming. ‘Greg! Do something! Marcus has got him! Help him! Greg, help him! Help me!’

‘No, not Marcus.’ Suddenly Greg was laughing. ‘Marcus is here. With me! Nion’s possessed him.’ The name had come to him so easily – the name his wife had screamed into a Beltane dawn. Nion the Druid.

The voices were growing fainter, the sound of the sea louder. Suddenly Greg was afraid. Marcus was there; Marcus was inside him. Turning, he ran towards the water. He could feel the waves icy against his ankles, taking away all the pain. The shock of the cold stunned him.

Fight. He had to fight. The water was deeper now, sucking round his knees. Cold. Clean. Powerful.

Fight. Fight the Roman.

Fight or die.

Where was Roger? He had promised. Dad, help me! Help me fight him. Dad, please. His voice rose in pain and fear and anger.

A wave slammed against his waist and the shock of it stopped him.

He turned and surveyed the beach.

Fight. Jon too was fighting, the battle in his head deafening.

Recite. Fill your head with something else. That’s what Anne had said. Don’t let him take hold. Recite…

Nion must have his revenge.

Marcus is vanquished.

Nion turned his hungry, angry eyes to look for the Roman who had caused his death…

Fight. Fight the anger in his head.

Recite.

Byron. She didn’t know it, but he had learned Byron for her sake. ‘Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground…’ Grope for the memory. Fill the mind. ‘All tragedies are finish’d by a death.’ Was that Byron too…? It didn’t matter.

Jon stumbled away from the sea, his hands clawing at his temples. Where was she? Where was Claudia? His love. He shook his head. Kate. Where was Kate -? There was no one there. They had gone. Nion was gaining strength. Marcus? Where was Marcus? Nion had to be rid of Marcus for ever.

Recite. It’s the only way. Blank the druid out. Don’t let him in. He’s not going to win.

Sobbing, he fell on his knees in the wet sand.

‘She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

She walks in beauty, like the night…’

He repeated the words again and again until he had no strength left and his voice faded in his throat.

Marcus could see them clearly now, through the eyes of the man, Greg. They were there, near him, reaching out to one another.

Nion and Claudia.

Jon and Kate.

Greg groaned as the icy water slapped around his thighs. His eyes weren’t working properly. Everything was blurred.

Jon and Kate.

Nion and Claudia.

Slowly he was beginning to understand. Marcus fed on hate and jealousy. Their strength, their love, those were the weapons he needed. Clenching his fists he took a step towards the sand. Then another.

Fight.

Fight the alien inside his head.

Fight him with love. Love that transcends time and space.

Nion and Claudia.

Jon and Kate.

Jon and Kate.

The rage was receding. Greg could feel the anger and hate inside him dwindling. He took another step towards the beach. Marcus was losing. Love would always win over hate.

In the end.

Painfully he shook his head. It was as though he were waking from some hideous nightmare. Far out at sea a stray beam of sunlight had broken through the clouds to touch the sea to silver. He stared at it mesmerised, then slowly and weakly, he began to wade back towards the shore. He had won. Marcus was going. He could feel him shrinking and weakening. He rubbed his eyes. The dream had left him now; it had gone, into the shadows of eternity with its pain.

Kate looked up at Greg as she cradled Jon’s head on her knee, her eyes full of tears. The sweet scent of jasmine was all around her.

The hands on his head were gentle. He could feel them clearly, soothing away the pain.

Her voice. It was her voice. She was there. She was with him.

Weeping, Nion the Druid rested his head in the soft blue folds of her gown, and felt himself at peace.