The army truck had been filled with crimson cushions, divans and heavy velvet drapes. Crystal pendants, joss-stick burners and animal bones hung from the crossbars, lending it an air of decadence. “We’ve been using it as a mobile pagan temple,” Maggie explained, “a place of spiritual fulfillment.” Its stuffy, incense-filled atmosphere reminded May of an unhygienic brothel he had once visited in Tangiers, strictly in the course of an investigation. “May I introduce Dame Maud Hackshaw…‘
A middle-aged lady with improbable mauve hair and telescope-dense spectacle lenses eagerly clasped their hands. “Hello, ducks,” she said, “charmed, I’m sure.”
“She’s a true force for positive energy,” said Maggie. “She’s predicted so many births that the spiritualist newspapers nicknamed her Madame Ovary. Over there, Junior Warlock for our northeastern branch, Stanley Olthwaite. He came to our Winter Solstice snack ‘n’ spells party to help with the washing-up, and ended up staying on.”
A skinny young man in Wellingtons and a patched tweed overcoat eagerly removed his flat cap.“ ‘Ow do.”
John May started to feel as if he had wandered into an old Will Hay comedy. Something was making him itch. He resolved not to touch anything unusual.
“Maureen you’ve already met. Don’t get up, love, it’s not worth the risk. And Wendy, our organist.” Looking at the outrageously buxom, slender-waisted Wendy, rising to greet them as much as her tight spencer would allow, May understood why Stanley Olthwaite had elected to stay.
“Vicky said they needed a hand, like, at the centre,” Olthwaite told the detectives. “I came out of the army with nowt; I’d done tours of duty in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Basra, and ended up working as a bloody security guard in Newcastle.”
“Then he heard the call,” said Maggie, clasping her hands over her bosom. “These are spiritually lean times, and we needed someone who could manage heavy lifting. Plus he had his own spade and socket set, you see. Actually, we were just in the middle of a seance, but I put it on pause when I saw you coming, a little trick I learned from my new book.”
“A volume of invocations?” asked Bryant.
“No, it’s the instruction manual for my DVD player, but the principle’s the same. I’m glad you’re here, because funnily enough your name came up just as Maureen started her spirit writing. Grab a seat.”
“Well, we really can’t-‘ May began.
“No, I think this is important because there’s something very strange going on out here. We’ve been picking up some disturbing signals. The indications suggest we are in the presence of death. Snow elementals like to provide mortals with signs; it makes them feel useful.”
How could she know? thought May. How does she always know? Whether one was a believer or not, the cheerful little witch possessed a talent that had been tempered in adversity. She had never exploited her skills, but had dedicated her life to helping those left in pain and confusion by loss. May suspected she was more of a natural psychologist than most people, and this gave her abilities others ascribed to supernaturalism. Certainly, she had a phenomenal success rate in helping the PCU, even if her advice often seemed somewhat tangential to the investigation at hand.
Stanley helped the detectives inside, and Maggie closed the rear door. Bryant’s watery blue eyes had trouble adjusting after the blinding glare of the snowscape. As he found himself in the middle of a circle lit by a pair of paraffin lamps, it seemed as though he had stepped back into some dim-remembered past. The scene reminded him of a chiaroscuro painting by Wright of Derby, the flickering amber uplighting the faces of the group, the whispering drapes casting twisted shadows, the rising wind creaking against the struts of the truck walls. No matter how many times his partner had tried to dismiss the coven of St James as an anachronistic absurdity, the conviction of its members drew them both towards belief in the unthinkable. The strange intensity of those within the circle had the power to siphon off cynicism and breed conviction in the unknown.
“What form do these indications take?” asked Bryant.
“There is a dark vibration in the air that can be read with a mind trained to such fluctuations of the spirit,” said Maggie. “Maureen and I have both felt it very strongly. It could mean that someone has died as the result of being trapped in these freezing temperatures,” said Maggie, “but I don’t think so. Different types of death elicit different readings. The quiet ebbing away of a life force is very different from the sensations created by an act of violence. One might compare these feelings to seismic readings, the former a series of gently undulating waves, the latter jagged and tightly packed. I should have known you were here. The signs always grow stronger in your presence, Arthur. Your life is so often at risk. Now they will read the signs for you.”
At the centre of the circle, perched beside a folding card table and preparing for the impromptu seance, sat Maureen, a fleshy, sallow young woman in a brown roll-neck sweater and jeans. Her right hand rested lightly on a ballpoint pen, at the centre of a dozen sheets of foolscap. Her head had fallen forward and was partly obscured by a curtain of lank brown hair. She might have been asleep. The pen moved with almost imperceptible slowness, but picked up speed as Bryant approached. As neat letters formed-too neat to have been drawn freehand with one’s head bowed-the coven members read aloud. The intense concentration of the group would have impressed the most staunch nonbeliever.
The woman’s pale hand drifted across the sheet, leaving behind a letter C. The pen jumped, forming an R, then an O. Bryant felt the tiny white hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle.
“Crow,” said Wendy.
“Crotch,” said Stanley Olthwaite.
“Cormorant,” said Maggie.
“Crossroads, she’s trying to write crossroads,” said Dame Maud. “The unholy spot where the guilty were jeered by the mob, then hanged and buried alive in punishment for their sins.”
Another O appeared on the paper.
“Or perhaps she’s missed an episode of Coronation Street,” said Dame Maud.
“No, it’s corridors,” said Stanley softly, as if deciphering a crossword clue that had been eluding him. The pen moved again, but no ink appeared. With head still bowed, the spirit writer suddenly jabbed the tip into her left palm until it bled. Using the tiny pool of blood as a reservoir, she continued to scrawl in an unbroken flow. Not a word this time but a drawing, childlike and unfocussed, caused by the difficulty of writing without ink.
The face which formed was thin and young, with high cheekbones and sunken eyes where the blood spread into hollows, but it could have been anyone. Now Wendy had rocked back on her knees and was chanting something too softly for Bryant to catch beneath the moaning of the wind.
At that moment, the gusting stopped and the air became silent and still, revealing her whispered words. “Four pathways, two leading directly to death and two leading to salvation. Between God and Mephisto stand the white corridors.” She fell forward, and was caught by Olthwaite, who gently set her on a stack of pillows.
“White corridors always spell danger because they represent conduits through which evil can pass,” whispered Maggie. “Do you have any way of interpreting this, Arthur?”
“I think I may be able to shed some light,” said Bryant, catching his partner’s eye. “We are looking for a murderer who has struck among the passengers trapped here. I think you’ll find that the first white corridor is right outside, the snowbound roadway on which we find ourselves marooned. The second is the corridor leading to the London mortuary where our friend Oswald Finch has been found dead, a crime we are equally prevented from solving.”