The Cold Calling

Big problem was: most of the villagers seemed to love the bastard. The star-struck idiots on his damned courses taking all the rooms at the local hotels and pubs, filling up the holiday caravans on the mobile-home park; Jarman, the postmaster, claiming Falconer was the biggest boost to the local economy since they closed the bloody railway.

But look at the bloody damage he’s doing, Marcus would protest, and they’d all stare at him, mystified. And Marcus would try to explain how the damned man was destroying the ancient sanctity. Because that was his thing: to demystify, unravel, explain, according to his own limited, prosaic criteria, the essentially inexplicable. Demolishing mythology, dispelling atmosphere, stealing the energy and giving nothing back.

Except money.

Marcus delivering his side of the argument in two successive issues of The Phenomenologist: why the ludicrous University of the Earth would ultimately be a bad thing for the area. Leaving copies lying around, pinning up the article on the village noticeboard. With the exception of Amy, at the Tup, the villagers didn’t understand. They all thought he was out of his bloody tree. And jealous.

Falconer’s perpetually tanned face flexed and he flashed his white crowns. A combative, buccaneering smile, often seen on his accursed TV programme: the informed sceptic challenging the gullible, hare-brained mystic.

Marcus released the dog and straightened up: six inches shorter than Falconer, two stones heavier, ten years older. Malcolm growled happily.

‘You get hold of that bloody thing.’ The soundman backed away, protecting his privates. He wouldn’t know Malcolm was all mouth, no bite.

‘Dog’s got as much right to be here as you,’ said Marcus. ‘Probably more.’

‘You couldn’t be more wrong about that,’ Falconer said smoothly.

‘That animal touches me,’ the soundman said, ‘I’ll have the police in. Have it picked up and put down and you up in court.’ Turned on the cameraman. ‘I hate the country. You never told me there’d be any of this shit. You said there was no need for personal injury insurance. I’ve got kids, Patrick.’

‘Marcus,’ Falconer said, ‘did anyone ever tell you what an offensive little man you were? You’ve been here approximately half a minute, you’ve disrupted my shoot, upset my crew …’

‘Falconer.’ Marcus stared him in the eyes. ‘You have lived here less than six bloody months. In that short time, you have offended every one of my most basic sensibilities.’

‘Sensibilities?’ Falconer shook his head pityingly. ‘God preserve us.’

Marcus advanced on him. ‘Turned the whole valley into a sodding film set. Everywhere I go, there you are doing one of your inane “pieces-to-camera” on the psychology of Neolithic person … as though the whole bloody Stone Age is your bloody backyard.’

‘Well,’ Falconer said. ‘At least my version of pre-history is based on knowledge, as distinct from wishful thinking. But I really don’t have the time to discuss the nonsense of ley lines with an old fart whose opinions are irrelevant anyway, so-’

‘Bollocks! You don’t really know any more than the rest of us. You’re just a bloody academic vampire. A leech. ‘

Marcus stopped, knowing he was losing it. Falconer was laughing.

‘Roger,’ the cameraman said. He looked about twenty-two, and petulant. ‘Just look at that sun, will you? We’re missing my shot. ‘

‘Oh dear!’ Marcus snarled. ‘You’re missing the little turd’s shot.’

Falconer stopped laughing. There was clearly a real possibility they wouldn’t be able to video him with the sun beaming out of his head. Not today, anyway. Oh bloody dear.

‘All right, old chap.’ The great man stretched a stiff arm at Marcus. ‘Run along. Out!’

‘Out?’ Marcus stood his ground. ‘Out of the district? Out of the country? Who the fuck do you think you are?’

‘All right, I’ll tell you who I am.’ Falconer’s face hardened. ‘I am the owner of Black Knoll.’

There was a moment of ghastly silence as the words hit Marcus like an anvil and all the breath went out of him. Before disbelief set in.

‘Rubbish. That’s … rubbish. Balls. You … you can’t just buy an ancient monument. Even you.’

‘Of course I can. And the land it stands on.’

‘That’s impossible.’ Marcus felt weak. Couldn’t be true. The Jenkins brothers knew how much he wanted the Knoll. Knew he’d get the money together one day.

‘Contracts were exchanged yesterday at four p.m., in Hereford.’ Falconer pausing to savour the reaction. ‘The Jenkinses are very happy indeed at the thought of getting rid of a useless, scrubby little mound without having to sell the meadow as well. If you’d like to see the paperwork, Marcus, call in at my office at Cefn-y-bedd. On your way down.’

‘But …’ Marcus couldn’t summon the breath; his chest felt tight as a bloody drum. Wait till he saw the Jenkins brothers, fucking traitorous bastards. ‘Why …?’

‘Because I like the bloody thing, Marcus. Because I want to study it in peace. Because the University of the Earth really ought to have its own ancient site, where my people can carry out their experiments uninterrupted by-’

‘Their experiments? This is a bloody shrine!’

Falconer passed a hand across his eyes, tottered theatrically. ‘Bacton, people like you astonish me. You have the credulity of small children. Anything bizarre, anything determinedly unscientific, like the fantasies of some deluded, pubescent brat back in the twenties-’

‘It’s people like you’ — Marcus brandished a finger at him — ‘who hounded that child out of the village.’

‘And one can only be thankful, Marcus, that there weren’t people like you around to canonize her.’

Marcus thought suddenly of Mrs Willis. Her recent, unprecedented tiredness, her headaches. His stomach went cold.

‘You don’t understand anything, do you? It’s a healing place. That’s why it was sited where it is. To channel solar energy.’

‘Sure, sure. Just one of the theories we’ll be putting to the test. Scientifically.’

‘With a view to disproving it. And meanwhile, what about the people who come up to draw on the energy?’ Marcus felt his lip tremble, picturing Mrs Willis making her way here in the dark, increasingly unsteady, but determined, knowing that the return journey would be so much lighter.

‘Balls,’ Falconer said. ‘I’ve never heard such complete balls.’

‘Roger …’

‘I’ll be right with you, Patrick. Marcus Bacton is leaving. And he’s not coming back. In future — and I’m making this clear now, in front of witnesses — he’ll not be welcome on this site.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’d bloody love to stop us coming here, but you know you can’t, so-’

‘Oh, I can, Marcus. It’s not a public right of way. When we install our fence …’

‘Fence? Fence?’ He’d bring Mrs Willis up here in defiance of the bastard, but how could he lift her over a fence? ‘You don’t know what you’re fucking doing …’

‘I’m fully cognisant of my legal position. Anyone wishing to visit Black Knoll will require permission which, in most cases, if we’re not working here, will be given. Between the hours of nine a.m. and six p.m.’

His narrow, allegedly handsome face flushed with triumph, Falconer waited for the significance of this to dawn, as it were, on Marcus.

‘You bastard,’ Marcus whispered. ‘You utter, crass bastard. ‘

Falconer flicked a contemptuous hand at him, walked off and went to stand by the burial chamber. ‘Too late, Patrick?’

‘Not if we’re quick,’ said the cameraman.

Marcus turned abruptly away so they wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes, his jaw quaking. Sensing his distress, Malcolm kept close to his legs as he made his way down from the Knoll.

‘He can’t,’ Marcus told the dog. ‘He fucking can’t. ‘

The rising sun full in his face.

For Annie Davies, the sun had come down and appeared to roll along the ground, between the hills, a great,