The Cold Calling

XLVIII

Maiden moved quickly but circuitously across the field. Don’t use the path, Cindy had warned. It’s too straight. And don’t, whatever you do, put yourself between the circle and the Knights.

The Whispering Knights.

The Whispering Knights was the name given to another collapsed dolmen, once a kind of High Knoll-type structure, but taller, and the stones had folded in on one another, and now they were like giants conspiring.

The monument was in a fairly vast, open field on the opposite side of the road from the King Stone and about a quarter of a mile from the Rollright circle.

You can’t miss them, Bobby; there’s nothing else in that field.

Only a sprinkle of trees on the horizon, a line of hedge marking a field boundary — all briefly shown to him by the sheet lightning, some miles away yet, but closing.

And, unfortunately, anyone inside those stones, they can’t miss you.

When the lightning came again, like a revolving searchlight, Maiden dropped into the short grass. The image of the Knights burned into his mind. They were surrounded by railings, like the King Stone but far bigger, more like big birds than men, black hooded crows, huddled.

Rising.

Earth release me.

Clouds cushion me.

Sky receive me.

Cindy felt himself looking down on the bone-hard Cotswold Ridge, imagining his body growing lighter than the clouds, in all senses of the word, his cloak of feathers coming alive, becoming wings. And the wings, when he spread them, all aglow.

The Fychans had taught him this. The Fychans, father and son; there had been a grandfather, too, and two more generations before him, taking the family tradition back into the eighteenth century. And farther back, to the days when the family house of rubble was a house of skins. The word shaman never used, no specific Welsh word for shaman. Dynion hysbys, they called the Fychans. The Men who Know. When a Christmas show in Llandudno had been abandoned following a fire at the theatre, Cindy had wandered south into the mountains around Cader Idris, happened to stop at the Fychan farmhouse for a night’s bed and breakfast, which turned into two nights, then three weeks and several years, on and off — the Fychans forever saying, in their sly, North Walian way, that he’d never make a proper dyn hysbys, not being born to the Welsh language.

But he would be … well, something.

It was an inner way, a discipline; it did not exclude Christian ethics, it harnessed the imagination in a practical way. Now Cindy made himself go walking in the unstable sky, into the nervous system of the storm, imagining every charcoal cloud he touched being softened by his incandescence.

When lightning came at him, he opened himself to it and the electricity hit him in a great, sizzling spasm of agony, but he walked on, playing with the storm, taunting it like a lion-tamer with a whip.

Only it wasn’t a whip, not really; Cindy suspected that it was no more than a piece of string, that he was not a great and powerful shaman but very possibly an ageing sham.

Less than thirty yards from the Whispering Knights now, and Bobby Maiden was wriggling along the ground on his stomach, because there was nothing in that flat, spacious field but him and the Knights. And anything which the Knights might enclose.

If Fraser-Hale was here, there wasn’t going to be much of an element of surprise, but advertisement wouldn’t help.

Something inside him started quivering like a very thin wire. Trepidation. He’d never seen Adrian Fraser-Hale, only his blood-washed leavings. Trepidation, where there should have been hatred. He wondered how his dad would handle this. Wondered what had really happened the night Norman Plod took on Harry Skinner and his lads in the old paint warehouse at Wilmslow.

The daft things you thought about when you were terrified.

Aw, come on, he’s just a guy.

Just a guy who killed and killed and killed again and was never even suspected to exist because his motivation was beyond the accepted parameters of criminal behaviour.

Out of the darkness, out of the old stones, the Green Man spoke.

‘Hullo there?’

‘Sheet lightning showed him leaning over the railings: flop-haired, boyish.

Maiden didn’t move.

‘Don’t come any closer, will you, old chap?’ the Green Man said. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it. Rather tense tonight.’

Maiden didn’t reply. The darkness settled back around him like a security blanket. He couldn’t believe the voice. Together with the flash-image, the voice — so clear in the still, taut air — had brought up a ludicrous picture of some cool young World War Two airman, leaning against his Spitfire, smoking a pipe and wondering, in a desultory way, what Jerry had up his sleeve for tonight.

‘Except you might stand up. Quite like to take a look at you next time there’s a flash.’

So Fraser-Hale couldn’t see him, didn’t know how close he was. Perhaps had heard him moving across the field. Hadn’t seen him in the lightning.

Which made him seem less of a threat, less of a fine-tuned, hawk-eyed, all-sensing Stone Age stalker, half man, half Will o’ the Wisp woodland sprite.

‘So let’s have you on your feet, shall we? See who you are.’

Maiden said carefully, ‘Who do you think I am?’

Barely a pause. ‘Someone the woman told I suppose. Made a mistake there, but we broke down in the wrong place, you see. Engines are man-made. Imprecise. I can’t be doing with things I haven’t made myself.’

‘What woman’s that … Adrian?’

‘Oh … blond hair. American. Someone’s sister.’

Green Man Psychological Profile: when they lost their identity, became ‘the man’, ‘the woman’, it meant they’d been consigned to the mental file marked Sacrificial.

‘You mean the place you broke down, it would have been wrong to kill her there? Nowhere near a ley, or a sacred site?’

‘Who are you?’

Maiden kept his voice steady. ‘I’m your shadow, Adrian. I was with you in the New Forest. Under the pines near Avebury. And last night. At Collen Hall.’

‘Who are you?’ Plain curiosity.

‘It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t know me.’

‘No,’ Adrian said. ‘It certainly doesn’t matter to me. For the moment.’

‘But we know you. Quite a few of us.’ Tip the scales a little; make him feel exposed, analysed, possibly surrounded. We’ve been watching you for quite a while.’

‘With what purpose? To learn?’

Bloody hell, the arrogance.

Think.

Remembering, while he was with the Met, being sent on a siege-negotiators’ course. Not the full course, a weekend primer, play-acting. Learning to relate to the hyped-up nutter at the upstairs window holding a blade to his former girlfriend’s throat, the fugitive on the eleventh-floor balcony with the baby. Keep them talking. Become a friend, the only friend they’ve got.

The course had been short on advice for dealing with a passionately motivated assassin perfectly at home among Neolithic stones with a storm on the way: his ideal killing situation, but you didn’t know quite who he was planning to kill or quite when or quite how, only how he’d killed the others, no specific MO — apart from being governed by earth-forces which might not exist outside the labyrinth of his mind.

Maiden rolled onto his side. Over to the right, there was a tiny, twin glow. The candles on the wedding altar, over four hundred yards away. Were the people all still there? Had they moved away, leaving the candles?

And don’t, whatever you do, put yourself between the circle and the Knights.

‘Adrian,’ he said. ‘The thing is, you’ve quite impressed us. We don’t think there’s ever been anyone precisely like you.’

‘Then you must be pretty stupid, if you think that. There was a time when everyone was like me.’

‘Hunting?’

‘Hunting to live. Living to hunt. Feeding the organism, feeding the Earth. The great energy cycle. It’s the big secret.’ Adrian laughed, a full-bodied ha ha ha sort of laugh. ‘Killing makes the world go round.’

‘Terrific.’

‘What did you say?’

For once, Cindy was wrong. The storm might be a psychological trigger, but he wasn’t expecting the storm to do his killing for him. Too random. The Green Man liked to be in full control. The Whispering Knights was a perfect, strategic observation post, a little island. Was he waiting for someone here? Would someone be sent, like the birdwatcher? Had Maiden fallen into that role?

It wasn’t enough.

Pull him out of the abstract. Tie him down. A name.

‘I gather Roger Falconer’s been using your ideas.’

‘Ideas?’

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

‘We were going to write a book together.’

‘That’s what he told you, is it? You and Roger, both names on the front?’

‘Not sure. Not sure he deserves it.’

‘Worried he might rip you off?’

A pause.

‘Rip? I may rip his throat out. I may give him to the Knoll. Have to leave the Knoll something when I go. Could be Roger. What do you think?’

Talking to Maiden as someone who, having studied the Green Man, was expected to grasp the point.

‘Where are you going, Adrian?’

Pause. ‘Who did you say you were?’

‘You wouldn’t know me. My name’s … Robert.’

‘You’re right. I don’t know anyone called Robert. What do you do?’

‘I’m a painter. Like Turner.’

‘I don’t know much about art.’

‘But you know what you like. And you like the picture of Stonehenge. In the storm. That’s a Turner.’

‘No!’

‘Yes …’ Watch it. ‘No. Sorry. Must be thinking of another one.’

‘Don’t be stupid, I know which one you mean. The lightning, called into the circle. And the sheep waiting to die for the Earth. And the shepherd. One of the world’s greatest works of art. A message. From the Earth. I mean, it doesn’t matter who daubed the paint on; it’s a spiritual work, a coded message to mankind. They’re all willing sacrifices. I mean, for heaven’s sake, a shepherd knows when there’s a storm coming. A shepherd on Salisbury Plain — and I was born near there — he knows to avoid the stones, because, when it happens there, it’s going to be a big one. I mean, not now, perhaps, because Stonehenge is pretty useless now, with all the tourists, but then … when was that painted?’

‘About 1820?’

‘Gave himself up, that shepherd. And a few sheep. I’m glad you spotted that, Robert. You’re starting to understand.’

‘And what’s the message, Adrian? What’s the coded message?’

‘You’ll see. You’ll know.’

‘That’s why we’re here. Right?’

No reply.

‘You said Stonehenge was pretty useless now … that’s why you’ve come here, right?’

Laughter. ‘These stupid railings. What do they think they’re keeping out?’

‘Or keeping in?’

‘Very good, Robert. Very perceptive. Are you standing up, Robert? I want to see you. So do the Knights.’

Maiden lay still. Thought he heard shouts from the circle. They were still there? What was she doing?

Adrian laughed. ‘Why don’t you come closer, Robert? Come and watch. It’s like an army. It’s regrouping. Gathering its forces. Conserving its energy, and it’s coming. It’s coming. It’s very close.’

The storm?

‘And what’s going to happen when it comes?’

‘I like you, Robert,’ Adrian said. ‘But you ask too many questions.’

Something came then. The first fork lightning, a jagged, white crack in the sky and it was close, speared the trees on the horizon and-

‘Told you!’ Adrian cried, splashed with ice-milk light, arms raised in euphoria, amid the Knights and the whump of thunder. ‘Told you, told you, told you! The next one that’s the sign — the next one will be it.’

No talking this one down.

‘All right, Adrian.’ He stood up. ‘I’m coming over.’

‘See?’ Grayle screamed, and she wasn’t the only woman there who did when all the stones lit up. ‘I thought you knew all about this stuff! Stone circles attracting lightning and all, on account of the streams crossing. You stay here, you’re gonna get blasted.’

‘Oh, let’s go,’ Janny sobbed. ‘It’s all ruined now, anyway. It was a stupid idea.’

‘No!’ Matthew shouted. ‘Grayle, I can’t believe you’re doing this. This is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s a blessing. Tell her, Charlie!’

‘Well,’ Charlie said, ‘they do say an electric storm’s an Act of God, but whether …’

‘It’s a blessing! It’s absolutely tremendous.’

‘It’s ruined!’ Janny shrieked.

‘I can get you a church,’ Charlie said. ‘Phone call should do it.’

‘I think you better had.’ People pushing forward. ‘I’m the bride’s father, and I think she’s had just about enough of this nonsense.’

‘I don’t want a bloody church!’ Matthew shouted. ‘Just do the business, Charlie. Tie the knot.’

‘No! You don’t understand … There’s a killer out there.’

With Janny’s father, Grayle saw, was Duncan Murphy, the professor from Oxford; hadn’t noticed him before. ‘Come on, Grayle,’ he said, ‘I think you’ve made your point.’

‘Duncan, you have to listen me. There’s a mad guy …’

Duncan Murphy and some other man, they took an arm each and lifted her off her feet and back into the congregation.

He could see the Knights, but no Adrian.

No telling how much time he had. The only way he’d know what they were up against was to get inside those railings, step inside the tiger’s cage.

And then? Would he still be Robert then, when the energy exploded, when the shit hit the fan? Or would have become ‘the man’? Maybe ‘a poor specimen’. And later tonight, the Green Man would be talking his storm-lit death into the burial chamber at Black Knoll.

‘OK. I’m here, Adrian. Adrian?’

Walking those last few paces, his head was clearing. Pleasanter now, the night a bit cooler. Hands in his pockets, the essence of peat coming back to him. Damp and lonely.

A dodgy streetlamp flickering on and off and, even when it was on, it wasn’t fully on, so you could almost see the filament in the bulb, a worm of blue-white light. She was standing under the lamp and seemed to be going on and off like the light; you saw her and then you didn’t.

‘Emma?’

He saw the face of the woman under the lamp. It wasn’t Em’s, though she was about the same age. Her hair was in a bun. She had a case at her feet.

She disappeared in the lightning.

It came down, against all the earth-mystery rules, not in the circle, but in the pines, those skeletal, stalky pines.

But it lit the circle. Seemed as if it lit up every one of the seventy-plus cheesy, pockmarked, weathered stones. So savage and so bright was the lightning that it seemed you would have had time to walk round and count them all one more time before it faded.

Except that Grayle — and possibly she was the only one of them — was not looking at either the stones or the pines, a couple of which had caught fire, but at Janny’s wedding dress, the only thing here which was, conspicuously, not an unnatural, blazing white.

Janny’s wedding dress, from the waist to the prim, high neck, had grown a sunburst of deepest, rosiest red.

No … Jesus.

Grayle stood transfixed, feeling the hands of Duncan Murphy and the other guy dropping away, and then, spinning round, saw a small flash across the big, flat field and there was also a crack. Not the thunder, surely, because the thunder was almost directly overhead, like an avalanche in the sky, and Grayle wasn’t sure of the order any of this was happening because so many terrible things were happening.

But that was a shot. That, God damn it, was a gunshot.

At some point, Janny finally screamed, and maybe it was at the thunder or maybe because she saw that she was soaked with blood or maybe — in the light of the burning pine trees — she saw Charlie sinking slowly to his knees, as if he was praying for deliverance, with a hole the size of a fist in the front of his surplice and everything emptying out.

Several people saw Charlie fall and there were screams of incomprehension that the lightning could do this. A guy rushed forward, and a woman shrieked, ‘Don’t touch him … he could be live!’

But Grayle Underhill knew there was nothing live about Charlie any more and she found herself walking purposefully out of the circle and into the big, flat field where she’d seen the flash and where, by the light of the burning pines, she could now see some stones, hunched up like gloating old men.

‘Well, as you see,’ Adrian said, ‘it’s an old Mauser. Nothing fancy. 1941, bolt action. Had it since I was a boy. Used to be my grandfather’s, bit of a wartime heirloom. Super old thing.’

Maiden had been struggling to find the gate in the high railings surrounding the Whispering Knights. Could have tried to climb over but he’d never have made it, and Adrian would have shot him and left him bleeding there on top of the iron spikes.

But nothing like that. Adrian had opened the gate for him, peering at his face in the faint, sparky light from the blazing pines four hundred yards away. Adrian beaming. ‘Come in, Robert. You can come in now.’

Proudly showing him the set-up.

‘The sight …’ He detached the rifle from a metal frame wedged between two of the Knights. ‘Well, I simply bought that at a gun shop in Worcester. Utility stuff. The support I made myself.’

‘People say you’re very practical.’

‘One tries.’

Sharp screams of terror spattered the sky like sparks over the Rollright Stones. He must have killed or wounded. Two shots.

‘Energy,’ Adrian said. ‘Look at those flames. That’s confirmation. Oh God, Robert, feel the release. Feel that glorious, glorious release of pure, terrestrial energy. The fusion of the Earth and the sky and … whump!’

Adrian was sky-high. In his army sweater and his camouflage trousers, he looked strong, swelling with power. You could smell his sweat, like engine oil, feel his heat. He caressed the rifle in his arms. Even without it, he wouldn’t have regarded Maiden as any kind of threat or any kind of sacred, chosen target because Maiden’s approach had been along no known, or even suspected, ley.

Everything in Adrian’s world was completely straightforward, rigidly aligned.

He grinned from a summit of self-belief.

‘Must’ve got two, Robert.’ Like some country-sport enthusiast talking pheasants. ‘Do you think two?’

There was a smell of burning in the hellish, rosy night.

‘Three would’ve been better, but I was only given the light for two, so … One has to go with the surge. When you’re working together, breathing together.’

‘Better than sex, Adrian?’ Maiden recalling the Green Man’s long, liquid, shuddering moan as the lightning flared and the gun went off.

Wrong. Adrian stiffened. He made a contemptuous noise. Adrian was a moralist. Adrian had strict ethics. Adrian did not like dirty talk.

‘So who are you?’ Adrian said, unfriendly again.

Maiden felt dog-tired, used up. Whatever energy had been generated it wasn’t accessible to him.

‘I said …’ Adrian placed a hand in the centre of Maiden’s chest, pushed him hard against the rails. ‘Who … are … you?’

Adrian was bigger, heavier, swollen with self-righteousness. Close up for the first time, Maiden could see his eyes glittering with the mindless joy of the bully. Seen it, so many times, in his dad’s eyes, when Norman brought the slipper out. Norman didn’t wear slippers; he only had the one, used for disciplinary purposes. Discipline. Authority. Adrian would know all about that.

OK then. Maiden drew a hard breath.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Bobby Maiden.’ He paused. This was ridiculous. ‘Adrian Fraser-Hale, I’m arresting you for the murder of Ersula Underhill. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention, when questioned, anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be taken …’

‘Oh.’ Adrian retreated to the railings, the rifle in his arms. ‘I see.’

This would be the first time anyone had applied the word murder to Adrian’s continuing programme of sacrificial bloodletting. Maiden took a determined step towards him.

‘Further charges will be made later. Hand me the rifle, Adrian.’

‘Adrian?’ a faint, subdued voice said from the other side of the railings.

‘Oh shit,’ Maiden said.

She stood in the grass, fifteen, twenty yards away. A small figure in a torn skirt, hair sweated to her cheeks.

‘Come on, Adrian …’ Maiden held out his hands for the rifle.

But really the hands were out there in prayer.

‘Do the sensible thing, eh?’ Maiden said, just like the old man would’ve said.

Grayle Underhill said, ‘Oh.’

Feeling Fraser-Hale’s attention waver, Maiden went for him, went for the gun.

And felt the air pulse as Adrian moved with a swift and shocking grace, bringing up the rifle, half turning as Maiden went for him. That fixed, opaque glaze of madness in Adrian’s eyes, his teeth bared and parted. You could almost see the twisted, fibrous roots and stretched tendrils in the Green Man’s feral smile, as he brought down the wooden rifle butt hard into Maiden’s eye, the left one, the one that was still half closed.

As Maiden sank, in agony, to his knees, the world was divided into blurred segments by the railings, through which he could see the pale, wavering shape which would, by now, be sharp and tight in Adrian’s line of fire.

‘The woman’s on the line, Robert.’ The voice of the Green Man quivering with euphoria and a kind of wonder at the gloriously unexpected magic of the situation. ‘I said it should be three, didn’t I? The woman’s on the line.’