Bobby’s face as rigid as a mask, his bad eye livid in the last, unhealthy light. Dealing with it now. He said, ‘I remember, in one dream, I saw his face shadowed by the spade. That is, the Green Man face. Twigs sprouting. And again, in a wreath in the front of a funeral parlour. And yet we don’t know what he looks like, do we? Except he’s a big lad with corn-coloured hair. Harmless-looking. And we don’t know if he has anything in mind for today. He can’t do much in front of an entire wedding party. Crowds aren’t his style, unless-’
‘Surely, Bobby, that’s the problem. Doesn’t have a style, does he? He responds to the location and the prevailing conditions. And he watches for a sign. Which could be anything. He’s pretty free with his interpretations.’
Bobby was looking up into the east, where the sky was darkest.
‘What is it, boy?’
He shook his head.
‘Tell me.’
Bobby shrugged, and Cindy listened without interruption as he described a painting by Turner, showing Stonehenge lit by a vivid storm.
‘Maybe another of your archetypal images,’ Bobby said. ‘But I just had the feeling that was the bolt that hit me. When I was dead. They’ve got a print of it at Cefn-y-bedd. Knocked me back, seeing it. Magda said that was his favourite painting. I assumed she meant Falconer.’
‘But that was Stonehenge?’
‘But the public isn’t allowed into Stonehenge any more. Security guards and everything. It’s the one place he can’t get to.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘There’re dead lambs in the picture,’ Bobby said. ‘And a dead shepherd. It’s like the storm’s been drawn to the circle. This break in the clouds, like the eye of the storm’s just opened over Stonehenge. It’s a scene of violent death and there’s a sense of inevitability about it. See, if I was him, and that was my favourite painting and I just happened to be in a stone circle during a thunderstorm, even I might see that as some kind of sign. You know?’
Cindy said, ‘Know much about meteorology, do you? How long, for instance, before this one arrives?’
‘Surprised we haven’t heard it already.’
Cindy looked into the hard, tight sky. ‘And how many dead lambs?’
XLVI
Marcus knew it was them by the speed the van was travelling.
You’d think the drivers who would race along these lanes would be those who knew them best, had negotiated them all their motoring lives, could anticipate the angle of every treacherous bend.
Not so. The locals knew, from bitter experience, that if they crashed it would be into a neighbour. Or a neighbour’s wife. Or a neighbour’s second cousin who was pregnant. Or the midwife on her way to deliver the second cousin’s child.
The locals knew that if they crashed and it was their fault and someone died, then the crash would live with them, even unto the third and fourth generation. No, the locals took it easy, pulled into the verge for oncoming tractors, exchanged polite waves.
So Marcus could tell by its reckless speed in the dusk — and because it was an anonymous white van and because it drove past the castle entrance and then returned the same way within a couple of minutes — that it was them.
He discovered that he had wedged himself against the highest, most concealing part of what now constituted the battlements of the tower. He found himself hunched up, his hands gripping his knees.
He recognized what fell onto the left sleeve of his tweed jacket as a droplet of sweat. Truth was, he hadn’t really expected anyone to come at all.
It had occurred to him that in not leaving the farmhouse after Anderson’s call, he had been spectacularly stupid. If Maiden and Cindy the bloody Shaman had returned, he’d have told them about Anderson’s message and they’d have urged him to go with them; he’d have refused, naturally, at first, but might conceivably have backed down.
It occurred to him, as he noticed how rapidly the sky was darkening and curdling, that he might actually be rather frightened.
Some of the families, Grayle saw, were dubious about going inside the circle. They hung around on the fringes, a couple of feet behind the stones. Grayle moved back, too, hearing their whispers.
‘… must be drab enough on a nice day.’
‘… ought at least to have the union blessed in a proper church.’
‘… and I’m sorry, Chris, but if it starts raining I shall have to go back to the car. Not going to get much shelter from those pines, are we?’
Sure won’t, Grayle thought. The pines stood tall and ravaged, strung out behind the circle, even more witchy, somehow, than the stones.
The people inside the stones, making another circle, were mostly young and casually dressed, though with a flourish, most of the women in long skirts like Grayle’s. A couple of guys wore sixties-style caftans and there were bright gypsy scarves and vests — New Age, earth-mysteries chic.
Charlie had brought his altar out over a bald patch in the grass, close to the centre of the circle. He was talking to Matthew. Apparently there wasn’t going to be a best man; Matthew said there should be just the three of them at the heart of it all, himself, his bride and the priest.
She wondered where Adrian would stand when he arrived, which group he would feel he belonged to, the New Agers or the establishment. Strange guy. Not what you first thought he was. She wondered how he was getting on with the car.
There was a ragged cheer from the New Age contingent as three men and a woman arrived with a couple of guitars and one of those Irish hand drums and set up under a tall, thrusting stone in the eastern part of the circle.
‘I can see we won’t be having hymns, then,’ a relative observed sourly.
Charlie had placed two candles on his altar, with glass funnels round them to prevent the wind blowing them out. There was no wind. Looking at the sky, they’d need all the light they could get.
‘Grayle?’
She turned. It was a voice she knew, a face she didn’t, not at first. Grey-haired guy in a jacket and tie.
‘Thank God,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Cindy Mars-Lewis.’
‘Oh God. What are you-’
‘A word, Grayle.’
He wasn’t smiling. He walked away, not a single bangle jangling, into the wood between the circle and the road, and she followed, with a sense of dumb foreboding. Behind, on the edge of the circle, the band had started playing an English folksong about its being pleasant and delightful on a midsummer morn, and that sounded about as wrong as everything else here this evening.
Two of them. One was thickset, almost chubby, his head shaved close; he wore jeans and a short denim jacket. The other had a longer, looser jacket, one hand inside it. He was a longer, looser man all round; he had spiky red hair and a seemingly permanent smile.
They must have left their van in the lane. Marcus hadn’t heard it stop. He kept very quiet at the top of his broken tower. It was dark enough for there to be lights in the house and there were none. They’d surely reason it out that there was nobody at home and bugger off.
Or perhaps go back to their van and wait for someone to return.
When they had a slight struggle opening the five-barred gate, he saw they both wore short leather gloves and the squat man had a leather wristband with brass studs.
There was no creeping about; they walked in as if they owned the bloody place. Marcus was furious.
‘Whassis? Fucking castle?’
‘Think of it as a new experience, Bez. Life’s rich tapestry. We never done a castle.’
Birmingham accents.
‘All I’m saying, he never said nothing about a fucking castle.’
‘He said Castle Farm, you twat!’
‘So? We lived in Castle Close, but there weren’t no fucking castle there. And the next street up was called Palace Place, but there weren’t …’