‘He was a coward,’ snaps Draco. ‘He knew what we expected of him.’
Grus ignores the outburst. ‘It presents us with certain problems.’
Draco steps closer to him. ‘I read the signs as well as you. We have time enough to ride this storm before the holy nexus.’
‘There was a letter,’ adds Grus. ‘Aquila knows someone working on the investigation and a suicide note was left for his son.’
‘Son?’ Draco casts his mind back and a vague memory surfaces. Nathaniel with a child, a skinny youth with a mop of black hair. ‘I forgot he had a son. Became a teacher at Oxford?’
‘Cambridge. Now he’ll be coming home.’ Grus lays out the implication. ‘Back to his father’s home. And who knows what he might find in there.’
Draco creases his brow and looks fixedly to Musca. ‘Do what must be done. We all thought well of our brother. In life he was our greatest of allies. We must ensure that in death he does not turn out to be our worst of enemies.’
5
An evening mist swirls around the base of the stones, a meteorological sleight of hand creating an archipelago in a sea of clouds. To motorists zipping past on the nearby trunk roads it’s a scenic bonus but to the Followers it is much more.
This is twilight. L’heure bleue. A precious, twice-a-day time between dawn and sunrise, sunset and dusk. When light and dark are in balance and the spirits of the hidden worlds find a fragile harmony.
The Henge Master understands. He knows that nautical twilight comes first, as the sun sinks between six and twelve degrees below the horizon and gives sailors the first reliable readings of the stars. Astronomical twilight follows, as the sun slides from twelve to eighteen degrees below the horizon.
Degrees. Geometry. The position of the sun. A sacred triangle mastered by men like him from century to century. Stonehenge wouldn’t be here without them. Its location is not accidental. Divined by the greatest of ancient augers and archaeoastronomers, its siting was planned by the most advanced of minds. Such was the precision of its build, the circle took more than half a millennium to complete.
And now, more than four millennia later, the Followers lavish upon the stones a similar rapt attention to detail.
The Henge Master assumes his position at exactly the moment that nautical twilight enters astronomical twilight. He stands as still as the bluestone soldiers circled around him, guarding, protecting.
He is alone.
Like an ancient haruspex, he waits patiently for the gods.
And soon, in a soft rustle of voices, they speak. He absorbs their wisdom and knows now what to do. He will worry less about the professor’s suicide and more about the son. He will check that the sacrifice was given a proper burial — it would be disastrous if the remains were to be unearthed. Above all, he will ensure that the second stage of the renewal is completed.
The ceremony must be finished.
The milky vapour rises around his legs. In the wondrous half-light the sarsens come alive. A trick of the eye? A trompe l’œil? He doesn’t think so. The new moon is barely visible to the uneducated but to an archaeoastronomer like him it is a beacon in the cosmos. Across the vaults of heaven, orbital maps arrange themselves, celestial cycles spring into being and with every atom of his body he senses completion of the sun’s shift from Beltane to the solstice.
Seven days to solstitium — the moment the sun stands still. And all attention will be on the dawn. When it really should be on the dusk that will follow.
Five full days will pass after midnight on the solstice, then in the fertile evening twilight of that mystical evening will come the first full moon following solstitium. The time of renewal. When he must return to the Sacreds and complete what he has begun.
The sky has darkened now. The Master looks for Polaris, the North Star, the Lodestar, the brightest light of Ursae Minoris. The closest blink of godliness to the celestial pole. His eyes fall down the black curtain of the sky to the prehistoric earth, to the Slaughter Stone, and he shudders as he hears the command of the Sacreds.
The gods will not tolerate failure.
6
DI Megan Baker wants to forget this particular day. And it’s still a long way from over. The stick-thin thirty-one-year-old has a sick child at home, no husband to help since she kicked him out, and an arsy DCI who has landed her with a messy suicide. Now she must stay late to see the grieving son, face to face. That, and the combination of unpaid bills cluttering her handbag, is enough to start her smoking again. But she doesn’t.
Her parents have said they’ll have Sammy again, they always do — and it’s ‘never a problem’, unless you count the patronising lecture and the scalding looks when she collects her poorly four-year-old daughter several hours later than promised.
But she won’t give up. Being police is what she always wanted. What — despite a failed marriage — she still wants.
A shot of coffee and several sticks of gum take away the craving for nicotine. Her mobile rings and she looks at the caller display. CB — short for Cheating Bastard. She couldn’t bring herself to enter her ex-husband’s real name. Cheating Bastard seemed more appropriate. He is a uniformed inspector in another local division but their paths still cross. Too often. At work and during painful access visits.
CB doesn’t want agreed visits. Oh no. That would cramp his shag-everything-with-a-pulse lifestyle. He expects to turn up whenever he wants to see Sammy. And that’s just not fair. To her daughter or to her.
The urge to throw the ringing mobile at the wall is almost irresistible. She snatches it off her desk a beat before it trips to voicemail. ‘Yes?’ she snaps.
CB also has no time for pleasantries. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Sammy is sick?’
‘She’s got a fever, that’s all. She’ll be fine.’
‘You a doctor now?’
‘You a parent now?’
He emits a laboured sigh. ‘Meg, I’m concerned about my daughter. You’d shout at me if I didn’t ring, now you’re shouting because I have.’
She counts to ten and spits out his name, ‘Adam, Sammy’s fine. Kids pick up bugs at playschool all the time. Her temperature’s high, she was a little sick last night, that’s all.’
‘It’s not measles or one of those things?’
‘No.’ Megan suddenly doubts herself. ‘I don’t think so. Mum’s with her, there is nothing to worry about.’
‘You should be with her. When she’s sick a little girl wants her mum not her grandma.’
‘Go to hell, Adam.’ She hangs up and feels her heart pounding. He always does that to her. Winds her up. Brings her to snapping point.
The desk phone jangles and she nearly jumps out of her skin. It’s reception. Gideon Chase is downstairs. She tells them she is on her way and takes a final slug of the now-cold coffee. Talking to the family of the deceased is never easy.
Reception is empty except for a tall, dark-haired man with shock etched on his pale face. She takes a long breath as she approaches. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Baker. Megan Baker.’ She offers a hand and instantly notices the well-worn blue plaster on her index finger is in danger of coming off.