A black bus was not a real hippy bus. Hippies had rainbow buses.
The Pilgrims, though, they were different. Gwyn ap Nudd, lord of darkness, his sickle raised. The Pilgrims laughing because they knew the Tor had betrayed Jim and Juanita. The hill of dreams where she'd sat all night and drunk cheap wine and watched for the good aliens, the mystic hill which Jim had painted reflecting the last light… had reversed dramatically into the negative image of itself, thus becoming a dark hill, and spewed out the black bus of death.
And the good, hopeful hippies who danced like butterflies and wished people love had given way to twisted, embittered hippies, children of the Dark Chalice.
She felt the whole town twisting and turning and tightening around her like the grey snake-hair of the black priestess, Ceridwen.
Who had Diane.
'Diane!' Juanita screamed. 'Where are you? Answer me!'
Nobody answered her. Alone on the cold wet street, she sobbed and scuttled away, a Verity in the making.
There were questions he didn't have to ask any more, like why Lord Pennard had abandoned attempts to get Meadwell back.
Why he'd placed his daughter in the care of strict, old-fashioned nannies who would take no nonsense. Who could be relied upon to keep her away from Archer.
Why he'd sent her away to school after school. Why he wanted her to marry a man in distant Yorkshire.
'You could never be sure, could you? Whether it was real or the whole thing was fantasy. Whether Archer had actually pushed his mother downstairs and might one day do something similar to Diane. You were just trying to keep them apart as long as it was in your power to do so.'
'He's my only son.' When Pennard looked up, his face had hardened again. 'My heir. The next Viscount Pennard. And before that he'll be the MP for Mendip South. It's coming right again, Powys. We're selling the land for the road. The future's sound. We never needed the chalice.'
'That's what Archer thinks too, is it?'
'Get out. Go on.' Pennard turned away. 'We never had this conversation. I've never seen you in my life. Just get out of my house.'
'Do you know where your daughter is now? Have you any idea?'
'Get out!'
'Don't you think it might be a good idea to report her missing? To the police? They'd listen to you. They'd pull out the stops.'
Pennard didn't reply. He didn't move. He was like marble.
Powys found his own way out down a shabby, leather-smelling passageway, frugally lit.
Rankin was waiting for him at the front door.
'Get what you wanted?'
'More or less, thanks.'
'I was listening,' Rankin said. 'Other side of the door.'
'What?'
'The aristocracy.' Rankin shook his head. 'Sometimes they can be very naive. Quite often we have to save them from themselves.'
He was half a head taller than Powys, held himself very straight. His face was without expression.
'Because we need them, you see. They're our backbone. You might not think much of him and his kind, Mr Poe-is, but they've made this country what it is. They deserve our protection.'
'Most people have to protect themselves,' Powys said nervously.
'I can't let you spread this around,' Rankin said, very matter-of-fact. 'You know that. I had my son break into your car, take it round the back of the house for tonight. We've killed your dog, sorry about that. Sorry about all of this, but I take my job seriously and that man in there and what he stands for is worth ten of you and all the pathetic sods down in that town, with their medallions and their dowsing sticks. You understand that, don't you, sir? All I'm saying, this is nothing personal.'
Rankin held open the door.
'After you,' he said.
ELEVEN
Powys went quietly.
Rankin held open the double-glazed door of the porch for him. Not good form to soil your master's premises.
Powys noticed that it was cheap, aluminium double-glazing. The economic way to cut heating bills.
He felt almost light-headed as he turned to Rankin and said, 'You don't really have to do this, do you' You don't have to kill me?'
Wanting to sound at least frightened but aware that it only came out puzzled. Faintly incredulous that there could still be men like Rankin who would murder without compunction if it was a matter of supporting the system which supported them.
Wondering distantly, as if he was watching from above or on a closed circuit TV, how exactly it would be done. One of those SAS blows that drove your nose bones into your brain, perhaps. Or a slim knife to the heart. He wondered if his body would end up drawn and quartered like Abbot Whiting's and buried under what would become the Central Somerset (Bath-Taunton) Relief Road.
'It's the way things are,' Rankin said apologetically. Immediately outside the door he put on his leather cap. 'Preserving what has to be preserved, So much of it's gone, you see.'
'Yes.' Arnold was gone. We've killed your dog, sorry about that.
Well, that wouldn't be hard, a three legged dog, recovering from shock. While Rankin was neatly closing the porch door, he thought about Arnold, the night the vet had taken his leg off. Everything they'd been through since, the long walks along Offa's Dyke after which he'd sometimes have to carry Arnold home.
'Please,' he said, knowing this time that there were real tears in his eyes. 'Can't you…?'
And seeing a definite naked contempt in Rankin's eyes in the half second before he felt his face contort in blind fury as he sank his left fist into the man's gut.
Distantly aware, as Rankin doubled up, of all his rediscovered New Age credentials floating away into the ether. Surprised at the surge of maddened strength, which hurled Rankin back into the porch, snarling,
'… fucking scumbag cunt…' A face smashing again and again into the double-glazed door, which did not break.
Aware with a sense of dismay that it was his voice and Rankin's face. Fully aware that all this would have been entirely beyond him if Rankin had not blithely mentioned having killed his dog.
'Hey, shit, come on…' Pulling on Powys's shoulder. 'Stop it. You don't wanner go to gaol for shit like this.'
Powys's hands were covered in blood. He got back to his feet. Rankin sat up on the top step and spat out blood. His eyes were moving, coldly weighing up the situation, working out his best move.
Powys kicked him in the throat.
'Bugger me,' Sam Daniel said, as Rankin went down gagging. 'I thought this was the Age of Aquarius. Just let's get the hell out, eh?'
Powys remembered now. How he'd called up Woolly on the off chance he was still around, needing someone to be at Meadwell if Verity got the call from Wanda. And Woolly had turned up with Sam who'd offered to go with Powys to Bowermead Hall. Slipped out of the car at the bottom of the drive to find his own discreet way in, keep an eye out.
'He killed Arnold,' Powys said. Rankin didn't move, lay wheezing quietly to himself.
'He what?'
'Where's the car?'
'It's down there, by those bushes,' Sam said. 'You left it unlocked, remember? I let the handbrake off and rolled it a few yards to the bushes, out of the light. To give me some cover, as we eco-guerrillas say.'
'Arnold?'
'He's lying on his rug. What did you think?'
'Why would this guy say he'd killed him?'
'It's the kind of guy he is, Powys. Or maybe he was going to. Or maybe somebody else… Shit.'
Powys turned and saw a mirror image of Rankin at the foot of the steps.
'Dad?'
'This is Wayne Rankin,' Sam said. 'He's training to be as big a psycho as his old man.'
Wayne Rankin was looking at Powys's hands. 'What you done to my dad?'
'Your dad,' Sam said, 'made a slight miscalculation about the aggression quotient of New Age Man. Now just back off, son, it's two against one and neither of us is in the best of moods.'