The Cold Calling

XLVII

The King Stone, nearly eight feet tall, was like a caged beast inside its iron, schoolyard-type railings. To Maiden — standing in an open field behind it, now — it seemed like a huge head and neck attached to feet or claws, half sunk into the worn grass, clutching at the ground, as if it was preparing to spring out of there.

‘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.’

‘Now,’ said the minister. ‘It says here, in this little prayer book, that marriage is an honourable estate, instituted of God, in the time of man’s innocence, signifying to us the mystical union between Christ and his church. I want us to think about that, about what it means.’

‘Close friend, huh?’

‘Almost,’ Maiden said, and there must have been a fissure in his voice because Grayle suddenly clung to him, for just a second, then let him go, stepped away, blinking hard.

‘Bonding of the bereaved,’ she said. ‘Jesus, he could be in these woods. He could be just yards away from us now.’ She didn’t look around. ‘This shamanic stuff of Cindy’s. You believe he can intercede with nature, head off that storm?’

‘Do I hell,’ Maiden said.

Grayle nodded. ‘So we need to stop the ceremony.’

‘No need to make a drama out of it. We just get everybody together in one place, well clear of the circle, for safety.’

‘I know,’ the minister said, ‘that some members of Janny and Matthew’s families must think a stone circle is a highly unsuitable place for a wedding.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Grayle said. ‘I’m from New York. Everybody knows how crass and crazy we are. I got nothing to lose.’

‘Just don’t start a panic. Be playing into his hands. Be discreet.’

‘Sure. What will you do?’

‘If he’s here, I’ll find him. I have to find him.’

‘How?’

He didn’t reply.

‘… and what do we think of when we think of a wedding?’ the minister asked. We think of a ring. And here we are, all of us, inside one of the oldest rings in these islands. Joining together, in our faith — perhaps our various faiths — to celebrate love. So I’d like us all to join hands … no … come on … there’s nothing pagan about this, we’re all decently dressed …’

‘If you’re gonna be alone,’ Grayle said, ‘you make sure he doesn’t find you first.’

‘I know.’

‘Or Cindy. He’s alone too.’

‘If you don’t include the spirits of the air.’

‘I could get quite fond of that old weirdo,’ Grayle said. ‘But spirits of the air I can live without. You take care.’

I have to know, Cindy said deep inside himself. Is it blood you want? Is it the lifeblood of mammals? Is it our terror? Do you thrive on the fear of the fox before the hounds tear it apart? And do you suck the life-force released in the blood of a woman or a man at one of your shrines, at the crossing of energy lines and ghost roads? I have to know, or this is useless.

From the top of the King Stone, Kelvyn cackled contemptuously.

You old fool, you don’t even know who you’re talking to.

It was true. He’d never known. The Welsh were a contradiction, they both worshipped nature and feared the God of the Old Testament, in whose honour they built, in place of standing stones, all those grim, grey, monolithic chapels.

Shrines to cruel nature, a cruel God.

And yes, there were times when that Old Testament God would have struck down the guests at a wedding with hardly a thought. In the Old Testament, people died for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong company.

‘Cindy?’

He opened his eyes. On the other side of the railings stood Bobby Maiden.

‘This is a bit hard,’ Bobby said, ‘if you want the truth.’

He’d taken off his jacket, stood there, his T-shirt brilliant against the sky, torn at the left shoulder.

‘Tell me, lovely.’

‘Grayle’s trying to stop the ceremony, I’m wandering around like a spare prick. And … what I thought … anybody can find him, it’s got to be me, right?’

‘It’s an argument.’

‘Only I don’t know how to go about it.’

‘And?’

‘Possibly, you can help.’

‘I see.’ Cindy rocked a little on his shaman’s mat, working this out. ‘You want to go back into the darkness. Into the cold.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Remembering that the whole point of last night was to get you out of there. And to get it out of you.’

‘The way I see it, for a few seconds, me and him … I may be losing it a bit here, but I feel some part of him collided with some part of me.’

‘So it seems.’

‘Maybe they need to collide again.’

Cindy deliberated, taking several long, pensive breaths. Kelvyn cackling nastily in his head.

‘Don’t think about it too long.’ Bobby folded his arms. ‘I think I can hear the cold calling.’

‘Hmm.’ Cindy stood up. Couldn’t spring up, these days, like he used to; old age catching up, what a bind it was. ‘I helped to bring you out, see, but I can’t ask you to go back. You have to ask me, isn’t it? This is how it’s done.’

‘Shamanic etiquette.’

‘Bit more than that, lovely. Do you really want to ask me?’

‘I think I just did.’

Cindy made him sit on the mat — forget the shamanic posture, no time for that, sit however was most comfortable — and then blindfolded him with a black woollen scarf, pulling it tight, heedless of the bruised eye.

‘Don’t fight it, don’t try and see through it. Submit to it. Steady your breathing. Empty your mind.’

From the suitcase he brought the envelope. That, envelope. He emptied the pieces of dry soil into his palm and crumbled them into dust. Whether this had come out of Bobby didn’t matter; it was what they had found on the capstone when he stopped vomiting. And it connected directly with the worst of all deaths, the choking, in the earth, of Ersula Underhill.

‘Don’t worry about time. There will be time.’ Cindy sprinkled the soil in a thin circle around both Bobby Maiden and the King Stone. ‘Step out of time. And think dark. Think cold.’

Lifting his drum from the case, fingers finding the rhythm.

‘After me … dark.’

‘Dark.’

‘Cold.’

‘Cold.’

‘Dark is cold.’

‘Dark is cold.’

‘Cold is dark.’

‘Cold is dark.’

‘Cold is Earth …’

It was a pity. Even the older, family guests were getting into it, resistance breaking down. Charlie had charm, he had style. It was a friendly, participatory wedding. He was making more of it than most of these guys did, in Grayle’s experience, most likely spinning it out because he was having fun too. And because of the dope, maybe.

They were all holding hands, even the relatives, and now the band was leading them in a hymn. Charlie was facing where the sky was darkest, so that Janny and Matthew, the other side of the picnic table altar, could look into the last light, not that there was much of that.

See, Charlie could have had it all over by now, the ceremony part at least. Not that this would get everyone out of the circle, someone having erected another picnic table out by the pines, this one more secular, bottles of champagne on it, towers of paper cups. Getting their money’s worth out of the Rollrights this black Saturday.

While they sang the hymn, All Things Bright And Beautiful, Grayle wandered quietly among the guests, looking into their faces, fearful that one would be the rugged, corn-topped visage of Adrian Fraser-Hale.

He was not here. Neither were there any stakes or rods protruding from the earth inside the circle. What would she have done if she’d found one? Pulled it out? Would that have made everything fine, made the dark clouds disperse?

Sure, and brought Ersula back to life.

Earth is dark.

Earth is dark.

Earth is cold.

Earth is cold.

When Bobby started shivering, Cindy stopped drumming, reduced his chant to a whisper, brought out the cloak of feathers and hung it round Bobby’s shoulders.

It was 6.30 p.m. and almost night. But not cold; this night was as close as October could get to humid. Only cold, apparently, where Bobby was, which was how it should be, but Cindy wasn’t happy about this. It was unknown country, a level of being he’d had no experience of, a harsher, more elemental place, kept in motion by the energy of slaughter. And it made no difference at all that this was, in all probability, an entirely imaginary country which had never existed outside a single, disturbed psyche.

The chant had taken its own direction, Bobby no longer responding to Cindy’s words. Which, again, was how it should be, but also rather frightening. It meant that Cindy no longer had a measure of control. He prayed for assistance, without knowing quite to whom the prayer was addressed.

Earth is dark.

Earth is cold.

Earth is grave.

Earth is grave.

Earth is dark is cold is grave.

Bobby stopped chanting. He was utterly still, did not even appear to be breathing. Face as pale as his T-shirt.

Cindy heard a humming. Not heard exactly, he was aware of a humming. It was coming not from Bobby but from the King Stone. The stone blurred before his eyes and seemed to swell, then came into sharp focus; despite the paucity of light, he could see every smear of mould and liver-spot of lichen.

Bobby Maiden’s lips parted, as if to resume the chant, but all that came out was a hiss, a sibilance, a rustling, in more than one tone. As though one hiss was communicating with another, a whispered conversation.

A whispered conversation between huddled figures. Identifying the location.

Cindy shook him, yelling in his face. ‘Stop. Get up. Get up!’

They could have got through this. It could have been over.

But then, just as Charlie came to that routine stuff about how if anyone knew of any just cause or impediment why these two fine young people should not, right this minute, be declared man and wife, then …

… then, in the east, over towards the city of Oxford, came a small but vivid flaring in the sky.

Christ.

Pushing people’s hands apart, Grayle ran out towards the altar. Reaching it about half a second before the distant punch of thunder.

‘Listen, I’m sorry … I’m sorry …’

The Reverend Charlie broke off, half turned to her. Another faraway fan of lightning briefly lit up his creased surplice.

‘Grayle?’

‘Charlie, listen to me, we have a problem. No sweat, but we need to suspend this ceremony. Until the storm passes. We have to get all these people out of here.’

Laid-back old Charlie, a dope-haze over his senses, he just looked at Grayle, kind of curious. But Matthew Lyall — a bulge in his top pocket that anyone could see was a ring box — was cold-sober and angry.

‘Who says?’

‘Me. I say. Please. You saw the lightning. That’s bad news, Matthew. That is very seriously bad news. See, I was hoping it was gonna pass, but it didn’t, and that’s real bad news, I’m sorry.’

‘Grayle, what on earth are you trying to do? This is our wedding.’

‘I, uh … Listen, I got a bad feeling about this whole thing. I’m a very sensitive person, Matthew, OK? Holy … Holy Grayle, right? In the States people listen to me. You should listen to me.’

‘I’ll listen to you as long as you like when Janny and I are married. Which would probably have been by now, if you hadn’t-’

‘You saw that lightning? Up in the sky? It’s gonna come closer. My feeling … I get feelings, OK, you should listen to my feelings … and my, er, strong, deep-down psychic feeling is you should not be getting married in a storm. It’s bad luck. It will overshadow your whole married life. Cause instability, and in … uh … infertility. Your marriage will be barren.’

In the third, slightly brighter flash, Janny Oates’s face crumpled like a paper bag, and Grayle felt like a piece of shit.

The slow, rolling thunder seemed to set off mutterings everywhere. ‘Who the hell is this woman?’ demanded some deeply offended, deeply Oxford-English man’s voice among the congregation. ‘She on drugs?’

A fourth flash lit a stone which was knotted and eroded — good Christ — into the shape of a hunched-up, grinning, winged demon, with a long neck and a bony crest on top of its head. Jesus, it was just a stone. They were all just stones. Like Adrian Fraser-Hale was just a guy.

‘I’m someone who knows,’ Grayle cried, ‘OK?’