‘Can’t say I blame you,’ Johnson said.
‘Shut up, Andrew,’ Bennett said. ‘Casey, you’ve got to. You could be our only hope.’
Casey shook her head as tears pressed out from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Shit!’ Bennett pushed himself to his feet, went across to the bar and poured himself a large glass of Coca-Cola, swallowing in one long gulp. He slammed the glass down on the bar. ‘Well that’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m sick of you people. We’ve got a really serious situation here, and you just fall to pieces. I can’t shoulder the responsibility for all this on my own.’
‘That’s not fair, Mike,’ Sheila said. ‘And no one’s asking you to take responsibility.’
‘No, but as the senior member of staff…’
‘We’re not at work now, Bennett,’ Farrant said. He’d recovered himself sufficiently for some of his old asperity to reassert itself. ‘You can’t tell us what to do, and you can’t force Casey to go out there if she doesn’t want to.’
‘Well, what would you suggest, Eddie?’ Bennett said, pouring himself another Coke. ‘Come on, let’s hear your brilliant plan to get us out of this bloody mess.’
Farrant’s eyes narrowed. ‘You sail, don’t you? I’ve heard you spouting off about it to anyone who would listen after one of your weekends out on the ocean.’
‘Kilvington Reservoir is hardly the ocean,’ Bennett said. He knew he’d exaggerated the part he played on his weekend sailing trips.
‘You still have experience of boats. Which is more than I can say for the rest of us. You could take the launch back to the mainland and get help.’ Farrant knew he was laying down a challenge.
‘He could also pilot the boat and take us all off the island,’ Sheila said. Desperation echoed in her voice. She was as scared as any of them.
‘Piss off, Sheila,’ Andrew Johnson said. ‘You’re mad if you think I’d put my life in his hands. No, thank you very much. I’d rather stay here and take my chances.’
Bennett was silent for a moment. He stared down into the bottom of his glass and saw all the old familiar demons lurking there. For Coke substitute whisky, bottles of it. He tipped the remainder of the drink down the sink. ‘Andrew’s right…for once,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure that I can handle the launch. Having you all along for the ride would only put me on edge. Best I try this alone, then I’ve only got my own neck to worry about.’
‘Or to save,’ Farrant said. There was a thin edge of insult in his tone.
Bennett glared at him.
‘Shut up, Eddie,’ Sheila said. ‘I agree with you, Mike. Better that the rest of us stay here together. Nothing can happen to us if we’re all watching out for each other.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was barely nine in the morning when Robert Carter lit his fifth cigarette, threw the cold remnants of his coffee onto the grass and sat back in his canvas garden chair. The inevitable suspension from duties that followed his assault on Crozier had given him three days at home so far and the days seemed destined to merge into weeks. Crozier was not a man for forgiveness; certainly not where Carter was concerned. Carter smiled; it had been worth it though. The satisfaction from the actual blow was one thing, but the look of surprise on the man’s face was priceless.
The weather had been kind and Carter had spent most of his enforced rest in the garden. The view down to the lake was spectacular, and there were hardly any tourists yet in this part of the Lake District so distractions were few.
He had worried over and over in his mind about the events that had led to Sian’s disappearance but couldn’t reach a conclusion. There seemed no explanation, logical or paranormal, to comfortably fit her complete loss from the world. The results from the car interior didn’t even reveal any DNA traces from her. It was as if she hadn’t existed. Only Carter knew she did exist, was a living, breathing, warm and loving girl, and it was his fault she was gone.
His fault and therefore his task to find her.
He picked up the laptop from the small glass-topped table and checked that he was still online. Wireless Internet was great but reception was not always as reliable as he would have chosen. The page he had been reading was still displayed. The Old Straight Track and Alfred Watkins.
Carter had always been taught that Alfred Watkins, a Herefordshire businessman, had discovered the concept of ley lines, or Leys, in 1921, and published his findings in his book The Old Straight Track. Watkins had been out in the countryside when it struck him that many of the footpaths seemed to pass in a straight line over the hilltops. These hilltops seemed to connect ancient sites of interest and Watkins argued that there was a whole pattern of alignments across the land, not only in his immediate view but much further afield as well.
Watkins suggested these straight tracks or ley lines might be the remnants of prehistoric trading routes. The fact that many of the tracks went up extremely steep hills he left to conjecture and over the years many explanations for these direct lines were examined, until Leys took on a mystical element.
Ley lines seemed to be alignments of ancient sites or holy places that are situated in a straight line and can range to several miles in length. They can be identified by the placed marker sites, or by the remnants of an old track.
Watkins said in his book, ‘…visualize a mound, circular earthwork, or clump of trees, planted on these high points, and in low points in the valley other mounds ringed with water to be seen from a distance. Then great standing stones brought to mark the way at intervals…’
Carter learned that Watkins told his son, ‘The whole thing came to me in a flash.’ Carter guessed this was a simple way of saying his thoughts and ideas coalesced simultaneously in a moment of inspiration but over the years the ‘flash’ began to be interpreted as having a magical meaning. Watkins believed the lines dated back to pre-Roman times.
From the Internet Carter found earlier references to Leys. In 1870, again in Herefordshire, William Henry Black gave a talk called Boundaries and Landmarks to the British Archaeological Association where he suggested, ‘Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe.’ Of course this might have been where the idea first embedded in Watkins’s mind, as he was a keen archaeologist, but for Carter the idea that ley lines might span the whole of Europe was fascinating.
He lit another cigarette and looked out over the treetops to the expanse of lake. Rods of sunlight cut through the thin gray cloud bouncing from the surface of the water as if smiles in a mirror.
Scrolling through related pages he found references to later ideas about Leys. Two British dowsers from the British Museum linked ley lines with underground streams and magnetic currents. Claims were that crossings of negative water lines and positive magnetic lines made a site holy, with many of these double lines on sacred sites.
Two German Nazi researchers, Wilhelm Tuedt and Josef Heinsch also claimed Teutonic peoples added to the construction of a network of astronomical Holy lines or Heilige Linien, which could be mapped against sacred sites throughout Europe. One example given was the rock formation in central Germany called Die Externsteine.
Later writers mentioned China and the whole landscape being in touch with the earth due to the laws of feng shui. It is thought that ancient civilizations believed the harmony of their people was dependent upon the harmony of the earth. To preserve this union they built their structures and monuments according to ley lines. Apart from China there was evidence in Greece, the civilizations of the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Incas, and even close to home in England and Scotland. Most schoolchildren knew about Stonehenge, though most were less familiar with the larger Avebury.