‘Shoo! Shoo — go away.’
Fangster grabbed the toilet brush and hit the animal hard across the back. There was a strange, squelchy sound and the rat vanished.
‘It’s gone!’
‘No. No. Look, it’s re-formed itself. Oh Lord, it’s obscene!’
The rat moved closer and the two men backed away, gibbering with fear. This was the worst thing so far, this disgusting, shape-changing thing, looking for something to chew.
‘Maybe we could jump over it and make a dash for it,’ suggested Manners.
But as soon as they moved, the rat moved too — sitting up on its hind legs, chomping… seeking…
It had come very close to Manners’s foot; it opened its mouth.
But what it found was wrong. It did not want hard non-ectoplasmic shoes; it did not want trouser legs smelling of disinfectant.
The rat wanted what it had always had and needed. It wanted what had violently and suddenly been torn from him. It wanted the familiar hairy chest and well-known heart of the man to whom it belonged.
Shaken and upset and displaced, Ranulf’s rat held the two men prisoner and waited.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Uncle George was a careful driver. His old Bentley usually chugged through the village at not much more than the speed of a tractor.
But he was not driving slowly now. Ever since Ned’s message had come over the crackling receiver of a schoolboy in the village who belonged to a radio club, Uncle George had behaved like a maniac.
He had collected his blunderbuss, and his pistol from the war, and his grandfather’s fowling piece, ready to blow to smithereens anyone who had harmed the children. Emily wanted to come with him; she had become quite hysterical since she had found that the children had gone.
‘I want to be beside you,’ she cried. ‘I want to shoot somebody too!’
But George had persuaded her that it would be best if she went down to the police station in case they wanted some more particulars. And then, just as he was setting off, a car had drawn up, and out poured three plump ladies in black overcoats who greeted him like long-lost relations, though he had never set eyes on them before.
‘Cooee — we’re the banshees,’ shouted the eldest and plumpest of the ladies. ‘We thought we’d call in on our way to Blackscar to tell—’
‘Blackscar,’ said Uncle George sharply. ‘What do you know about Blackscar?’
‘Well, it’s the most extraordinary thing,’ said the eldest banshee. ‘We just had a flash!’
‘It came to us when we woke from our nap,’ said the middle banshee. ‘We’d been wondering and wondering ever since we saw them in the gravel pit.’
‘So we thought we must go up and make sure, because we could see how troubled they were and when we remembered—’
But Sir George was in no mood to listen to this insane and meaningless babble.
‘Could you stand aside, please?’ he barked. ‘If you want to go to Blackscar you can follow me later.’
But the banshees had taken no notice.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to Blackscar too? You mean you had the same idea about The Feet and—’
But Sir George had run out of patience.
‘Out of my way, ladies,’ he snapped.
He opened the door and climbed in, but before he could start the engine the three banshees had got in the back.
‘It’s amazing. It’s such a coincidence! And think how much petrol we’ll save! We’re all ready, Sir George. Aren’t we, girls?’
If there had been one banshee George would have thrown her out. Even two. But throwing three well-fed banshees out of his car was going to take too long. He ground his dentures together and stepped on the accelerator.
So now he drove through the night. The message from the ship giving the location of the island had mentioned the stolen cattle, but to his surprise it was not the cattle he was thinking about, it was the children. He tried to remember how upset he had been when he heard that Rollo and Madlyn were coming for the summer, and now he realized that nothing mattered except that they and Ned were safe.
Sir George was an old man. The drive in the mist and the rain exhausted him more than he would have believed. When at last he came to Blackscar and stopped the car he almost slumped over the wheel.
Then slowly he raised his head. He had stopped at the edge of a small bluff which overlooked the sea and the island.
And what he saw was something out of a story from the beginning of time.
Seemingly walking on the water, came the Wild White Cattle of Clawstone, their horns glinting in the first rays of the morning sun. At their head was the king bull, and sitting on his back, urging him forwards, a shimmering Indian goddess with streaming hair. Behind the king came the old cow with her crumpled horn, limping a little; and then, strung out in single file over the causeway, the rest of his beasts: the angry bull, the two calves who were special friends, the cow who loved stinging nettles…
He saw them all and he knew them all. The morning light grew stronger and the shimmering goddess turned into Sunita. And now George saw the children. Water was already lapping over the causeway but they walked steadily, their heads held high. Ned and Madlyn were in front, helping to keep the cattle moving.
And at the end of the procession came Rollo, leading the smallest calf on a rope.
For a moment Sir George just looked, ashamed of the moisture in his eyes. The banshees were asleep. Then he hurried down to the sands. The king bull, finding himself on dry land, bellowed and tossed his head, then set off for a field behind the chapel, and the rest of the cattle followed him.
‘Let them be,’ said Sir George. ‘We’ll get them rounded up later.’ He could see how dozy the beasts were, still drugged perhaps. They would not roam too far. ‘What about you?’ he asked the children. ‘You’re not hurt?’
Ned shook his head. ‘We’re fine. Madlyn’s breathed in some anaesthetic, but she’s getting better.’
Madlyn nodded. ‘I’m all right — but the ghosts are a bit shaky, and Ranulf’s had an awful shock.’
But Sir George was not interested in the ghosts. What he wanted was to get his revenge on the villains.
‘Where are they?’ he asked. ‘Where are the men who did this?’
It had taken some time to get all the cattle ashore and into the field. Now Rollo handed his uncle the binoculars, and pointed.
Sir George focused and turned the glasses on to the Blackscar Box. The tide, they say, comes in at the speed of a galloping horse. Now it had completely drowned the causeway, and the two men who had tried to run off the island had been caught fair and square.
Looking through the glasses, Sir George found himself staring at the terrified, grimacing faces of Dr Manners and the vet.
‘I’ll get them when they come ashore,’ said Sir George gleefully. ‘I won’t save my bullets.’
But at that moment there was the noise of sirens and three police cars came roaring down the hill.
‘Bother,’ said Sir George. ‘They’ll want to arrest them, I suppose.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I haven’t shot anyone for years.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The cattle were back in Clawstone Park. The drugs they had been given had worn off; the beasts roamed as they had always done. Rollo, during his last days before his parents’ return, watched from the wall.
The fuss and the excitement had died down — the stories in the newspapers, the visits from the police — but not everything was quite the same. The smallest calf, the one the children had rescued from the operating table, no longer behaved in the way that the Wild White Cattle of Clawstone Park were supposed to behave. It had become tame and stood by the gate mooing for the children, and though Sir George did not approve of this, the calf became a pet and wandered in and out of the courtyard and up the stairs.