‘Are yow gonna shut the fuck up? It’s only a fucking ruin. Be no fucking men at arms up there with fucking crossbows.’
‘Just fucking hate old places. Got rooms where they shouldn’t’ve got no rooms. Bits of wall sticking out, fucking slits yer can’t see what’s the other side. What’s the fucking use of it? Knock ‘em down, I would.’
‘Yer scared, yow, en’t yer? Yer fucking scared. Yer spooked. ‘
‘Fuck off.’
They were standing now directly under the tower where Marcus sat. They were perhaps mid-twenties. Kind of youths he used to teach, used to have for breakfast. Ten years on. Marcus felt a sense of outrage.
The squat, shaven-headed one cupped his hands around his mouth and bawled out. ‘Anybody in?’
‘Anybody comes out,’ the other one said, ‘tell ‘em we broke down up the road and can we use the phone, right?’
The squat one walked out into the middle of the yard. ‘I said ‘s there any fucker in?’ Turned back. ‘Deserted. What y’wanna do, Bez?’
‘Not going back without. No way. We fucked up once. Fuck up twice, you get a reputation. We’ll wait. I’m not staying out here, neither.’ Bez looked up. ‘Gonna rain. Yow go’n do a door, I’ll just check the outbuildings. In case. And the castle, case Dracula’s in. Eh? Gallow?’
‘Fuck off.’ The squat one, Gallow, jerked up a forefinger and walked off towards the house.
‘Hey!’
‘’s up?’
‘Just in case …’ The red-haired one, Bez, took his hand out from inside his jacket. Something gleamed. ‘Which one you want?’
‘Gimme the sawn-off then. Might be a few of ‘em in there, keeping quiet sorta thing.’
A gun? A sawn-off bloody shotgun? Marcus’s whole face seemed to explode with sweat. They were assassins. They were here to kill. When you thought about professional killers, you somehow imagined serious, sinister, taciturn individuals. Not mindless young cretins, egging each other on, taking the piss. What was happening to the world?
Bez turned away and looked up and around and Marcus saw his face between the stones, through the branches, saw that Bez was old beyond his years, his face hard and flat, his smile stamped on, his eyes small and bright and compassionless.
Marcus cursed Maiden. Clutched the jagged stone that stood up like a single battlement and wished that Maiden might never have a night’s sleep for the rest of his miserable second life.
When Gallow reached the front door, Malcolm barked.
‘Shit. Fucking dog in there, Bez. I hate it, me, when there’s a fucking dog. En’t scared, dogs en’t. Can’t threaten a dog. Gotta shoot it, then y’gotta fuck off case it made too much fucking noise and some fucker phones the filth.’
‘Get fucking real, willya, man. No problem, place like this. No neighbours, shotguns going off the whole time, rabbits and things, nobody gives a shit. Nobody even notices. Now, go on. Do a door, do a window. Any problem, shout.’
‘I hate the fucking country. Everything’s too big.’ Gallow began to kick the front door, looking for weak points. In the kitchen, Malcolm barked and barked.
Marcus hugged his jagged stone for support. The bastard would get in. Start kicking open door after door, until he reached the kitchen, and then, when the door was open, Malcolm would go silent. Observe the newcomer through his unbalanced eyes, wondering if there might be a chocolate biscuit in this. Come waddling towards him, a dog that wouldn’t go in his basket at night without his teddy bear, but unfortunately looked like a complete psycho, an animal you wouldn’t ever argue with. Especially if you happened to be tooled-up and nervous.
Meanwhile, Bez, the one with no fear of spooky old buildings, would probably be unable to resist investigating the one stone, spiral staircase in the ruins.
Bez was prowling the buildings and he was tooled-up.
He was supposed to do … what? Stand up on the battlements, boom out, You, boy! Threaten them with five nights’ detention?
Could’ve been out of here two hours ago, the dog too. And why hadn’t he gone? Because he didn’t really believe it? Not precisely. It was because Maiden and Cindy had buggered off to face up the delightful Falconer with evidence that his ideas had inspired a madman. Leaving old man Bacton to hold the fort, make the tea, attend to a few senior citizen’s chores.
Marcus looked round for his eroded pitchfork.
‘OK, we had a breakdown,’ Grayle said. ‘Adrian organized a ride for me into Chipping Norton, and he said he’d call up the AA and wait for them and then he’d bring the car later. Why do you need to know this?’
They were standing out in the lane, across from a big, twirly-shaped outlying stone surrounded by railings. Cindy — looking even more bizarre, somehow, in men’s clothes — had with him Bobby Maiden, sans eyepatch and grilling her like a cop.
‘What’s the car?’
‘It’s a Rover. A small, red Rover something.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since you left him at the roadside, with the car?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure he’s not here?’
‘He’s not here. Where could he be? Hiding out behind the pines?’
Still suspicious of these guys. All this shamanic stuff, the way Cindy found a supernatural dimension to everything. She hadn’t needed it last night after her experience at the stones; it had surely caused that awful dream of Ersula. And she sure as hell didn’t need it at the Rollright Stones on the edge of a thunderstorm.
Except that Bobby’s questions were clipped and urgent and entirely prosaic.
‘When you picked him up, he have anything with him?’
‘Change of clothes was all.’
‘In what? A case? A bag?’
‘Yeah, he had … he called it a cricket bag.’
‘Big, long, leather bag, two handles?’
‘We couldn’t fit it in the trunk, had to stash it across the back seat.’
‘Did you feel there was anything in it, apart from clothes? Did it seem heavy when he picked it up? Was it bulging out anywhere?’
‘I don’t know! What else could be in there?’
Cindy said, ‘Perhaps a crossbow?’
‘Jesus, what’s all this about?’
‘When you broke down,’ Bobby said, ‘what do you think was wrong? What happened?’
‘I don’t know cars. We started losing power, the engine kind of whined.’
‘Fan belt? Could it have been that?’
Grayle shrugged. Cindy said, ‘What would be the significance of that?’
‘Was there any time Adrian was with the car and you weren’t there?’
‘Not really. I was driving. Oh. After we ate, I, uh, went to the bathroom and when I came out he was waiting in the parking lot. At the car.’
‘And you were in, what, five minutes?’
‘Jeez, you wanna know what I did in there? Well, I took a pee, I washed my hands, tried to make my hair look normal …’
‘And how long after the pub did the car start playing up?’
‘Not long. Half a mile?’
‘Right. See, while you were in the bog, he could’ve slashed the fan belt, so it’d snap soon after you drove away.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Most likely to get you out of the way and get himself some wheels. We should all be bloody glad it worked. He might have done something more drastic.’
Cindy said, ‘He would never do that unless it was a sacrifice. Where killing is concerned, he has his rules.’
Grayle said, voice faltering, ‘What is this? Just what is this about?’
‘All right,’ Cindy said. He held her shoulders, looked into her eyes. ‘You remember when we spoke the other night, in my room at the inn, of the contrasting aspects of the Knoll, male and female? And the male element linked to blood, slaughter …’
Grayle shook herself away. ‘Before you go any further, what’s your angle? Who are you?’
Bobby brought out his wallet. Grayle had never seen British police ID, but it looked straight. Also, he sounded right. He looked all wrong, but an undercover cop, the whole point was he should look all wrong.