He wrenches open the door of room seven, and, almost simultaneously, another door opens.
The lighting in the passage is dim, but if Bacton’s nephew had glanced to his left there would have been enough light for him to see the Green Man in his majesty. And all would have been ruined. But the Earth is with him tonight … the nephew, with a bundle of clothes under his arm, walks directly to the bathroom.
The Green Man steps back into room seven and waits to see what will happen.
In a short time, the nephew emerges, half dressed, and walks, with his head bowed, towards the stairs.
It is the sign.
The Green Man moves into the passage, flicks out the short, curved blade — like the moon … another sign! — and walks to the door of room five. Only then does it occur to him that these doors self-lock from the inside. Oh, he thinks, he should never have come here! His is an outdoor pursuit!
But even as he’s thinking these defeatist thoughts, he notices that the door is not fully closed. A garment has been inserted around the catch of the lock to prevent it engaging.
Presumably to facilitate her lover’s return, the woman has enclosed the lock in the cup of her brassiere. The Green M-
click.
‘I think that’s enough,’ Cindy said. ‘Take out the cassette, lock it in the glove compartment. It represents your freedom. Lock it away, don’t think of personal revenge. Think what … what a fine girl she was. Cry for her. And then put it behind you and clear your mind for what is to come. Do you hear me, Bobby?’
He couldn’t see Bobby’s face for his hands.
Cindy pulled alongside a phone box. ‘I’m going to phone Marcus. Put him in the picture.’
There was no reply at Castle Farm. Gone for a walk, perhaps, to think things out.
When he returned to the driving seat, Bobby looked composed again.
For now.
XLIV
The circle was looking even more chewed up today, as if the stones had some degenerative disease.
Or maybe, once again, it was just the way she was feeling.
‘Limestone,’ the Reverend Charlie said. ‘This is what happens with limestone. They’ll still be here in another two thousand years, count on it.’
He didn’t look a lot like a reverend. He had on this really old fringed leather jacket and frayed, off-white jeans and sneakers with a hole in one toe, through which you could see he wasn’t wearing socks.
The sky had cleared now, late afternoon, or maybe this was a different climate zone or something. In the east, purplish clouds were forming like a mountain and the sun had a dull, dirty sheen.
‘Going to rain at some stage.’ Charlie had a mild, London accent. ‘Nothing surer. Always rains at my weddings.’
He grinned, showing teeth that were uneven, chipped and brownish.
A lot like the Rollright Stones, in fact.
Grayle had come out here, ahead of the party, because Charlie had to come get his stuff together. She’d gotten talking to him, told him about Ersula, and he seemed like a nice guy, and he’d offered her a ride over, in his van.
She’d explained to him what had happened. How the hire car had broken down and Adrian couldn’t fix it, but said he’d run back to the pub and call up the AA, and when he returned it was in a car with this couple who were headed for Chipping Norton. Made sense, Adrian said, if she went along with these people and he’d stay and wait for the AA, who sometimes took simply for ever, and he’d bring the car along to the Stones once it was fixed.
On the one hand, Grayle didn’t like to leave the hire car. On the other, she’d had enough, for one day, of Adrian and his lectures. And it was kind of him. So she’d unloaded her case and gone with the people in the car and Adrian had stayed with the Rover and his cricket bag.
In the hotel in Chipping Norton, not surprisingly, there was no sign of Matthew or Janny, and Grayle obviously didn’t know any other guests. Which was how she’d homed in on the individual with the dog collar.
‘You conducted weddings here before, Charlie?’
‘Actually, no.’ The reverend massaged one of the taller stones with both hands. ‘Weddings here tend to be of the pagan variety. Handfastings, that sort of thing. I’m here by way of a compromise. Friend of the family. And also just about the only ordained clergyman they could find willing to conduct an open-air wedding in a place this notorious.’
The last tourists, two spinsterish ladies in golfing-type checked trousers, walked out of the circle and didn’t look back.
Grayle said, ‘Notorious?’
‘Been some fairly unpleasant goings-on at the old Rollrights over the centuries.’ Charlie leaned against the stone. ‘Well, over this century, particularly. It’s because it’s so relatively accessible from Oxford and London.’
‘What kind of goings-on?’
‘Oh, you know, satanic rites. Sicko stuff. For instance, a spaniel was sacrificed here some years ago.’
‘That’s awful. What kind of people would do that?’
‘No-one I’d care to break bread with, Grayle, but these are difficult, desperate times. Everyone searching for a quick, cut-price spiritual fix. Could you help me with my altar?’
Charlie’s altar was a small wooden picnic table. They set it up at the far end of the circle, where the pine trees reared. It looked flimsy and lonely.
‘You have your church hereabouts, Charlie?’
‘Don’t have a church at all. I’m a sort of embarrassing Anglican mendicant. Travel around, begging for scraps. Wedding here, two-week locum post there. Few rock festivals in the summer. They’re great. Sunday morning worship … surprising how many crawl out of their tents for it, even if they’re too stoned to read the hymn sheets. No, poor as the proverbial, but then so was JC.’
Charlie took out a tin box, placed it on the altar and began to roll himself a cigarette.
Grayle said, ‘You think these are, uh, bad places, generally?’
‘Course not. Terrific places, some of them. Wild and spectacular, like Castlerigg in the Lake District. Awe-inspiring like Avebury. Just not awfully sure about this one. Feels polluted, somehow. But, then, these are the places we should be bringing a little light down on, don’t you think?’
‘You think they still have power?’
‘Absolutely. Why else would we have built most of our churches on the same sites? You can feel it while you’re working, you really can. When you stand in front of the altar in some tiny little country church and raise your arms … vroom!’
‘And maybe you see … things?’
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. He looked her up and down. After inspecting the other guests at the hotel in Chipping Norton — nothing formal, but lots of floaty stuff — she’d changed in the ladies’ room into a long print skirt and a scoop-neck blouse, thrown a woollen wrap around her shoulders.
‘What sort of things?’ Charlie said suspiciously.
‘Kind of … unexplained phenomena things?’ She pulled on the tassels of her wrap. ‘I think I may be a little crazy.’
The Reverend Charlie invited her to sit on his altar with him, offered a cigarette. ‘Good stuff. Only the best from a man of God.’
Grayle blinked. ‘Uh, not right now, thanks.’
He nodded. ‘You know, Grayle, it’s an odd thing, but I never saw a ghost. Problem with ghosts — and I believe in them, sure — they never seem to appear to people who really want to see one. Strange, eh?’
‘Oh, I always wanted to see one. Back home. When I had this New Age newspaper column. But when I came over here, to find Ersula, when I was really alone in a strange place, no I did not want to see anything I couldn’t explain.’