The last lines were highlighted with what looked suspiciously like yellow greasepaint.
Between the text and a photograph of the angry father holding a strand of barbed wire, the Western Mail had provided a little map, showing the exact location of the trap, on the edge of an oak wood. A line had been drawn across it in black eyebrow pencil, and Cindy had scrawled, Get out your OS maps, Mr Bacton. All right, nobody dead this time, but if it had been a grown man on that bike, the wire would have had his head off, no question.
The tin kettle shrieked on the stove, just about echoing what was going on in Marcus’s head. Was he really supposed to print this creepy woman’s fantasies? The Miss Pinders would think The Phenomenologist had metamorphosed into the bloody News of the World.
With the noise of the kettle, he almost missed the discreet creak of the Healing Room door across the passage. Dived to the door just in time to spot the young chap with tousled, tawny hair — moving pretty damn silently for someone with such a hefty physique — trying to creep out unseen.
‘Bloody hell. ‘ Marcus was out of his chair, the school-master in him exploding to the surface. ‘You! Boy! ‘
The outgoing patient stopped.
‘Come here,’ Marcus demanded.
The face came round the kitchen door looking stupidly embarrassed.
‘Ah. Mr Bacton. It’s you.’
‘Who the fuck you think it is? This is where I live.’
‘Ah. Yes. Course it is. Sorry.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing in my house? Sent you to spy, has he?’
‘Well, actually …’ Adrian Fraser-Hale, Falconer’s resident boy scout, shuffled about in the kitchen doorway. ‘I came to consult Mrs Willis. I have this sort of skin problem, and the lady in the pub said-’
‘Skin problem? Fucking thick skin problem, if you ask me!’
‘No, it’s a sort of psoriasis.’ The boy turned sideways and pulled his collar down, revealing an area of pink and white blotches. ‘From the ear to the top of the neck. Itches frightfully.’
‘God save us.’ Marcus raised his eyes to the worm-ridden oak beams. The rash was probably the remains of adolescence. Young Fraser-Hale had the body of a man and the air of a sixth-former — the sort who was a natural captain of the first fifteen but lacked the dignity to make head boy.
‘Actually, Roger doesn’t know I’m here. I don’t suppose he’d be awfully pleased. I mean, I’ve been to the doctor and a couple of chemists, and they all go on about allergies and elimination tests which could take, you know, yonks. Meanwhile the thing just grows, like some sort of alien lichen, and, well, Roger wasn’t too keen on me appearing on the box looking like this.’
‘Oh good heavens, no, mustn’t have anyone epidermically challenged on the Roger Falconer programme.’
‘And the lady in the pub told me how Mrs Willis had cured her of a fairly vile rash, so …’
‘Yes, all right, I get the picture.’
The boy was so painfully sincere it was hard to imagine how he managed to work with Falconer.
Fraser-Hale said, ‘I didn’t mean to be surreptitious or anything.’
‘No, all right. Just the old girl gets tired. She’s … not young, and while she might think she’s pretty fit, I’m trying to discourage people from just turning up.’
Marcus stopped talking and waited for Fraser-Hale to go, but the boy just stood there, looking uncomfortable and fingering his psoriasis.
‘Actually, Mr Bacton, if I could just say … I mean, what happened this morning, and the bad feeling between you and Roger. I’m really frightfully divided about all that. Because, you know, I’m rather more on your side of the fence than his. And I think you’re absolutely right about Black Knoll …’
‘High Knoll.’
‘Yes, of course. I think it was probably the pivotal terrestrial power-centre for this whole area. I mean, one only has to spend time there, put one’s hands on the stone. So I’m … well, I … I think Roger’s wrong to fence it off and try to keep it for himself. I just wanted to tell you that.’
‘Well, it’s, er, good to know that you’re not all tarred with the same brush over at Cefn-y-bedd.’ A thought struck him. ‘You didn’t tell Mrs Willis about what happened this morning, did you?’
‘Oh dear.’ Adrian Fraser-Hale looked bereft. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Bacton. You see, I thought you’d have already told her.’
‘No,’ said Marcus, ‘I’m afraid I was in a bit of a state. Wanted to walk off the er … before I broke the news.’
‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘Not your fault. I suppose I was avoiding it.’
Fuck.
Mrs Willis liked to rest after a healing session, so Marcus waited half an hour before popping his head around the door.
‘All right, old love?’
She was lying on her daybed, a copy of her beloved People’s Friend by her side.
‘Sorry,’ he said inadequately. ‘I mean, you know …’
‘I knew there was something when you didn’t come back.’ Her face creasing, activating a thousand wrinkles. The old dear had started to look her age almost overnight. It was frightening.
‘I really am sorry,’ Marcus said. ‘Perhaps it’s all my fault. Perhaps if I’d got down on one knee to the fellow from the start. I’m going to talk to the County Council anyway. He can’t bar that footpath, he doesn’t own the meadow. And there must be some way we can stop him fencing it off.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mrs Willis.
‘It doesn’t matter? ‘
This was how she’d been for nearly a week. Not bothered about anything. Pale, listless. Dried up. Etiolated. No-one who saw her now would even recognize the bustling widow who’d turned up at the door, having come by bus and walked over a mile after his advertisement for a cleaner.
Cleaner. Ha. Much later, Marcus had discovered that the crafty old soul had made a few inquiries about him, discovered that here was a retired man with no practical skills to speak of but an undying interest in the Mysterious. And a house that was far too big for him: lots of room for jars and potions.
‘Don’t do this to me, old love,’ Marcus said. ‘You know it matters like hell that you won’t be able to go to the Knoll.’
Remembering how unutterably moved he’d been when he’d introduced her to the Knoll. When she’d stood by the burial chamber in silence, taking several long, slow breaths before declaring that he was right, it was special, it had a healing air. And, by God, she knew how to use it. How to focus it and channel it and pass it on. Look at the Anderson woman …
‘I never told you,’ Mrs Willis said in that dreamy way she sometimes had. ‘But I saw a black light.’
‘You saw what? ‘
What remained of the English teacher in him restrained itself from pointing out that you couldn’t actually have a black light. This was no time for bloody semantics.
‘Tell me, old love,’ he said. ‘When was this?’
‘What’s that?’
‘When? When did you see this …?’
‘Last Thursday night, would it be?’
‘You went at night? You shouldn’t be going out at bloody night! I didn’t see you go.’
Mrs Willis smiled the old sweet smile. ‘You’re a sound sleeper, boy.’
‘At night? I don’t understand.’ Bewilderment and panic jostling one another in his chest. ‘What’s going on? Bloody hell, Mrs Willis, that’s why you’ve been off colour, is it?’