The Deceit

3

The year was gone; the party was over. Malcolm Harding wandered, unsteadily, through the detritus of their New Year’s Eve merrymaking. He marvelled at how much booze ten people could manage to drink in seven hours.

The vodka bottles clinked at his feet; an entire army of empty beer cans stood to attention in the corner of the sitting room. Jojo was fast asleep on the sofa, cradling a wine bottle in her delicate hands.

He resisted the urge to look up her miniskirt.

She was so beautiful though. Even now, with her make-up mussed, sprawled dissolutely on the leather sofa, she was just lyrically pretty: perfect and blonde and twenty-one years old. Oh yes, he adored Jojo. Ever since they had arrived here on Christmas Eve in this grand and spooky old house, perched between enormous rocks in the wild west of Celtic Cornwall — which was itself the wild west of England — he had tried to hook up with her, in as subtle a fashion as he could manage.

And he had failed. Maybe he hadn’t been subtle enough? Maybe he had been too subtle? Maybe he could try again when they were all back at university. The holidays were nearly over. It was January the first, and it was — what? — three a.m.

Three a.m.!

Malcolm sat on a table and swigged from his bottle of beer. Amy Winehouse was still lamenting all the drugs that would kill her from the stereo. The music was so boomingly loud it was probably annoying the dead in Zennor churchyard, half a mile away.

Beer finished, Malcolm wondered vaguely, and groggily, where everyone else had gone. Rufus was presumably in one of the many bedrooms, with their amazing views of the sea, sleeping with Ally, as they had been doing ever since they had shared a bottle of vintage port on Boxing Day. Andrei had crashed with his girlfriend immediately after midnight. Josh and Paul were probably smoking upstairs, or chopping out a line. Or flaked out in their clothes.

Jojo turned over on the sofa, half-stirring, but still asleep. Her little denim skirt rode up as she did. Manfully, Malcolm resisted the temptation to linger; instead, he stood up, walked across the room, then wandered through the enormous mess that was the kitchen (they would have to hire some kids from the village to clear this up) and opened the kitchen door to the large gardens that surrounded this great old house, Eagle’s Nest.

The night was cold. The garden seemed empty. Then a dark and sudden figure loomed into view.

‘Jesus!’

Freddy laughed, and casually dropped his glowing cigarette onto the grass, not bothering to crush it underfoot.

‘Sorry, old boy. Did I frighten you?’

Malcolm was half-angry, yet half-relieved.

‘Yes you did. What the fuck are you doing, skulking out here?’

‘Well I came out to chuck up into the bushes, as is traditional on New Year’s Eve.’ Freddy smirked. ‘That last joint was a bit of a serial killer. But the air revived me.’

Now the two of them stood together in the cold, looking out to the distant waves. The house, Malcolm recalled, had once been owned by artists. You could see that its position might inspire.

‘So? Do tell. Did you manage to ravish Jojo yet?’

Malcolm sighed.

‘Not exactly.’

‘Ten days and not even a kiss? This is potentially worse than the Holocaust.’

‘Maybe. I’ll survive.’ Malcolm gazed down, once more taking in the magnificent view, the vast granite rocks and the moonlit fields below, which led down to the Atlantic. ‘Anyway, Freddy, mate, why are you still out here? You’ve been gone hours. It’s freezing.’

Freddy put a finger to his lips.

‘I wanted to sober up, as I said … and then …’

‘Then what?’

Even in the semi-darkness he could see the sly frown on Freddy Saunderson’s face.

‘Then I heard something.’

‘Duh?’

‘Something weird. And I keep hearing it.’

‘That’s Amy Winehouse. She’s dead.’

‘No. Not the music. Something else.’

‘But—’

‘There it is again! Listen.’

Freddy Saunderson was, for once, not joking. From way up on the moors there came a wild and very loud scream. No, not a scream — a feral chorus of screams; yet distorted and shrieking, mingling with the howl of the wind.

Malcolm felt an urge to step back: to physically retreat.

‘Jesus Christ. What is that?’

For a moment the noise abated, but then it returned. A distant choir, infantile and hideous. What the hell would make a sound like that?

At last, the noise ceased. The relative silence that followed seemed all the more oppressive. The thudding music in the house; the waves on the rocks below. Silence otherwise. Malcolm felt himself sobering up very fast.

Freddy pointed.

‘Up there.’

He was surely right. The noise appeared to be coming from the moors above them: from Zennor Hill, with its great granite carns and its brace of ruined cottages.

They’d walked around that forbidding landscape the day before, in the driving rain and blustering wind. The hilltop was druidic and malignant, even by day.

Freddy’s eyes flashed in the dark.

‘Shall we go and have a look?’

‘What? Are you nuts?’

‘No. Are you gay?’ Freddy laughed. ‘Oh come on. Let’s investigate. It’ll be fun.’

Malcolm hesitated: quite paralysed. He was seriously unkeen on investigating that noise, but he also didn’t want to appear a wuss in front of Freddy; he was wary of Freddy’s cruel sense of humour, his lacerating jokes. If he didn’t show he was up for this, Freddy might just humiliate him the next time he was feeling a little bored at the union bar.

Malcolm tried to smile.

‘All right then. Let’s see who’s the real gaylord.’

‘Excellent.’ Freddy rubbed his hands together. ‘We’d better get coats and stuff. This is like Enid Blyton, only with ritual murder.’

When they went back into the house, they found that Jojo had disappeared. Probably gone to bed? Malcolm was glad, in a protective sort of way. They turned off the music, grabbed their coats, boots and a pair of torches.

The path up to Zennor Hill began just outside the grounds. It had been treacherous the previous day; in the moonlight it was even trickier. Ferns and brambles dragged at them, tussocks of grass tripped every step. Above them, the imponderable carn glowered, framed by myriad stars.

But the horrible noise had stopped.

For five, ten minutes they ascended the silent, narrow path up the hill. The view of Zennor village below, its Christmas lights twinkling in the wind, was beautiful and sad. Malcolm began to wonder if they had imagined it. Maybe it had been some curious sound effect, perhaps the fierce January wind whistling through the rocks: there were many strange rock formations up here.

But then it came again, and this time it was even worse. The sound curdled the thoughts in his mind. This scathing and animalistic wailing was surely the sound of somebody — or something — in terrible and angry pain?

Freddy turned, just ahead, his face a blur in the gloom.

‘Pretty sure it’s coming from the ruined cottage, the big one, Carn Cottage. Is that a fire inside?’

Malcolm desperately wanted to go back now. This had been a daft idea; and yet he was still scared of Freddy’s put-downs. He was stuck.

The noise came, and went. This time it was so close it was like an exhalation — you could feel the scream on your face.

‘There, look!’ Freddy pointed his torch beam excitedly. ‘Scoundrels!’

Figures. There were people walking away — no, running away — down a lane across the top of the hill, dark shapes. How many? It was too difficult to see. Who were they? What were they?

Freddy was laughing.

‘Do you think it’s devil-worshippers? We might be turned into newts!’

The figures were already out of sight, swallowed by the darkness. Had they been spooked by the noise? Or by the fire? Or by Malcolm and Freddy?

Malcolm waved a desperate hand. ‘Look. Please. Can’t we just go? This is dangerous. Let’s just go, please. Call the cops.’

His protestations were futile; Freddy simply vaulted the low garden wall of the half-ruined cottage, and ran across the garden; he was followed by Malcolm, much less briskly.

As they neared the cottage, Malcolm could see there was indeed a fire burning inside the building. And it was a large fire, too, casting eerie orange shadows on the windows. The heat from within was palpable in the cold winter air.

‘Freddy — wait — don’t—’

It was too late. His friend was kicking at the old door; even as the infernal shrieking went on, and on.

‘C’mon — open up!’ Freddy laughed, ‘Open up, in the name of all that’s holy!’ Now Freddy stepped back and kicked even harder at the splintering door, and at last it succumbed. The lock snapped and the old door swung open, revealing a roar of heat and howls and things, strange black burning shapes, racing out at them, fleeing and burning—

A flaming creature leapt at Malcolm’s face, and its claws sank deep. Malcolm’s scream echoed down from the lonely carn, carried on the freezing wind.