The Cold Calling

melted into the side of the road and a guy in a dark suit climbed out the driver’s side, came round and opened the passenger door. Performed a theatrical bow, extended an arm … and Janny Oates stepped out in a long, plain white dress, a golden circlet in her hair. She saw Grayle and waved, all flushed and excited, looking about sixteen, and Grayle waved back and forced an encouraging smile.

‘He followed someone last night,’ Bobby said. ‘We’re sure he thought it was you.’

‘And he … he killed her?’ Janny was luminous against the sky.

‘Yes.’

‘OhmyGod.’

‘I’m sorry to unload all this on you, Grayle.’

‘We have to find him, don’t we? We have to find him right now.’

‘We do,’ Bobby said.

‘Just tell me. Who else did he kill?’

‘Just people. You wouldn’t know them. He didn’t know them.’

‘Except for Ersula.’

‘Yes.’

‘A friend,’ Grayle said. ‘She was his friend. Listen, he talked about sacrifices. He said people would be horrified if they actually knew what it was like here in the old days. He said … sacrifice … he said it was cruel but it was necessary.’

‘He said that to you?’

‘On the way here. He said the best sacrifice, the only real sacrifice was if you did it to someone who hadn’t done you any harm. He said the ultimate sacrifice was to take the life of a friend. And … and …’

‘Go on,’ Cindy whispered. ‘And?’

‘He doesn’t like New Age stuff. It’s like they’re wimps. He said they’d done real damage to the traditions.’

The wedding march was being played on a violin, ragged and a little out of tune, with guitar backing. Some people were cheering.

‘And I said — a couple times I think I said this — I said Janny and Matthew — because those guys are real New Agers, as you can see — I said, you know, what about them? Like, how come, if you hate all these people, you’re going to their wedding? And he goes, he just goes …’

Through the trees, she could see that Charlie had lit the candles on his altar. It was close to dark.

‘… they’re my friends.’

Marcus coughed.

It had taken him a while to build up the cough, and now it was out there wasn’t much to it. But it was quiet in the castle precincts now that Gallow and Bez had split up. Malcolm had given up barking. There was just the sound of Bez kicking open the barn door, the more distant thrust and rattle of Gallow unsubtly forcing the rear door of the house.

So the cough was distinct.

It brought Bez out of the barn into the darkening yard.

A splintering sound from behind the house meant Gallow was in. Gallow … loose … in the house.

Malcolm barked once.

Bez said, ‘Gallow?’

He stood in the yard looking over towards the castle walls. His hand went inside his jacket, came out with a pistol, a big one, automatic. They were completely bloody mad, Marcus thought. Drove halfway across England with an automatic pistol and a sawn-off shotgun in the van? What would they do if they were stopped?

Well, they probably never had been and so it wouldn’t happen, and if it did they could always shoot it out. The mad, brutal arrogance of young men. No animal more dangerous.

Bez said, ‘Gallow? That yow?’

Marcus smothered his second cough in his handkerchief. It was the cough of a man desperate not to cough, crippling himself to keep quiet.

It was enough.

Bez didn’t say, ‘Who’s that?’ or ‘Come out.’ Bez just wore his smile. The cough had made him happy.

At the top of the spiral, Marcus tensed, his arms so tight around the jagged stone that it rocked, and that stone must weigh more than the average anvil. Marcus closed his eyes as Bez put a foot on the first cracked stone stair. There were eleven steps before the stairs broke off. Seven before the final curve.

Come on then, bloody well get it over with.

Bez came up slowly. One foot on a step, then the other foot. Bez was, God forbid, some sort of bloody professional.

In the house, Gallow would be walking up the hall, being careful because he didn’t know where the dog was.

Bez reached the fourth step. Gallow would have discovered the old treatment room. Three more doors to the kitchen.

Please, Malcolm. Under the table, you cross-eyed bloody idiot, stay quiet until he arrives outside the kitchen door and then he’ll know you’ve been shut in and he’ll simply turn away.

Unless he thinks there’s someone in there with you.

God.

Fifth step.

Two and a half years he’d had Malcolm. Ugliest pup the RSPCA kennels ever took in. Poor old Malcolm.

Six. Bez stopped, listening. He’d see there was a curve ahead; he’d have his gun out in front of him. Marcus backed up the broken wall where the branches of the sycamore tree overhung. Sat on the top of the wall, leaning back into the branches which dipped under his weight. He was breathing hard, his glasses half misted. Braced himself against the biggest branch, holding on to it with both hands. Both feet wedged against the great stone that looked, from the ground, like a single battlement.

The yard was about thirty feet below. Break his bloody neck quite easily if he fell. And he’d rather fall than be shot by a moron.

And so Bez arrived on the seventh step and saw Marcus cowering on the edge of the tower, half into the sycamore tree. He relaxed.

‘All right, pal,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Maiden.’

‘Sonny,’ Marcus said, through gritted teeth. ‘Be bloody lucky if you can find a maiden over the age of twelve between here and Chepstow.’

Bez didn’t laugh. ‘Funny man, eh?’ Bringing the pistol into view. ‘This oil yer memory, Grandad?’

‘I’ve got an excellent memory, you cocky little bastard.’

‘Good. Yow gonna tell me where Maiden is?’

‘Don’t know what you mean.’

‘Then yow … are fucking dead.’ Bez brought up the pistol. ‘Old man. ’

Marcus stared into the pistol’s small, black hole and pushed both feet into the battlement stone.

The gun didn’t even go off. It clattered down, from step to step, quicker than Bez as the stone toppled onto his chest and he clutched it to him with both arms as he fell backwards, half spinning. And when his head hit the stone lintel on the curve of the spiral, there was a very delicate, genteel little crack, like the sound of two crown green bowls meeting in the stillness of a summer evening.

Marcus stood on the top step for a moment with both hands over his face.

Then he heard Malcolm yelp and he snatched up his pitchfork and staggered down the steps. At the bottom, his eyes met Bez’s eyes and Bez looked astonished, both eyes wide open, his mouth too.

Bez was dead.

‘Oh lord,’ Marcus said, shocked into moderation. ‘Oh God. ‘

And then stumbled across the dark yard to the house, edging round the building to the rear door, the pitchfork out in front of him.

The light was on in the passage. Doors either side were flung open. In the Healing Room, bottles and jars