'Psychic ecology, eh?' The bushes parted. A man stood there. Subterranean psychic network. Wow.'
The man wandered down from the bushes, a black and white dog at his heels.
'Sorry, I was just passing, couldn't help overhearing. Any chance you could decode this impenetrable jargon for me.
Dr Grainger's grip on Verity's shoulders eased. She scrambled up.
'You see… I may be wrong here, but it sounded like… you know… complete bollocks.'
He stepped down to the Meadwell plinth He was quite a young man, although his hair was grey. The dog did not follow him. It stopped at the edge of the bushes and growled. It had only three legs. The young man smiled.
'Bugger me, it's Pel Grainger, isn't it? Sorry, Doctor Grainger. That would be, I think, an honorary postal doctorate from somewhere like the University of Nerdsville, Indiana, right?'
'Who the fuck are you?' Dr Grainger picked up the spade.
'I'm the, um, earth-mysteries correspondent of The Avalonian. I'll be reviewing your book.' The young man shook his head. 'Serious bullshit, Pel, but you don't need me to tell you that.'
'You better watch your mouth…'
'Or you'll attack me with the spade?'
'Pel,' said Ms Castell. 'We go.'
Dr Grainger started forward.
'Pel,' snapped Ms Castell.
Dr Grainger snarled and hurled the spade to the ground.
Grainger and his partner walked back to the garden and down the path to the gate. Neither of them looked back.
Powys pushed some slabs of concrete back over the well cover with his shoe, waiting until they were off the premises before stepping down into a clump of dead thistles, stark as brown pylons.
He was glad to be away from Pixhill's well. As for Arnold – he wouldn't go near it.
'Thank you.' The little woman, Verity Endicott, smiled hesitantly. 'Thank you for your help.'
'It was a pleasure,' Powys said honestly.
'Would you like a cup of tea, perhaps?'
'I would love a cup of tea. I, um, I was coming to see you. I knocked on the front door, but everybody seemed to be up here, so
… He grinned apologetically, 'I slipped over into the field, came round the back way.'
He followed her back towards the house. 'You seem to be acquainted with Dr Grainger's work,' Miss Endicott said.
'A little.'
The doorway of Meadwell was like a fissure in an ancient tree. She vanished into it like an elf. He followed her.
Arnold didn't. Arnold shuffled around on the path, looking uncomfortable.
'OK,' Powys said. 'What's wrong?'
Arnold's first peculiar reaction had been when they turned into the Meadwell drive. Two yew trees meeting overhead, gnarled, full-bellied trees knotted with parasites.
And Arnold had started to pant. When the house came into view, with its weathered stone, mullioned windows and leafless creepers like torn fishing nets on the rocks, the dog had begun to whine. He'd been OK once they got into the field, but he wouldn't go near the well.
Dowser's dog. Arnold used to go out with Henry. Dogs like to please. Sniff out drugs or dead bodies. Arnold was attuned to less physical items. Well, all dogs were psychic to an extent; just that Arnold had learned to tell you what most dogs would be surprised you didn't already know about.
'We'll discuss this later,' Powys told him, then picked him up, and carried him into the house. 'You don't mind dogs, Miss Endicott?'
'I love all animals.' A note of sadness there.
They entered the darkest room you could imagine in daylight. Stone walls like a castle. Corners which disappeared into black shadow. He made out a huge inglenook like the maw of hell. A long, oak table. He stopped. This would just have to be the table where they'd laid out Colonel Pixhill.
'Please sit down,' Miss Endicott said. 'I'm sorry, I don't even know your name.'
'Powys.' He put Arnold down on the flagstones, 'Joe M. Powys.'
At that, Miss Endicott seemed to freeze. Her woodland mammal's eyes were startled and then confused. He saw that the skin around the eyes was doughy, suggesting exhaustion. Her dry, puckered lips formed the word Powys.
But only a thin ribbon of breath emerged. At that moment, Powys could almost swear the shadows in the room were moving. How could shadows move without light? He could never live here; he'd be constantly walking into the darkest comers just to reassure himself there was nothing there that really moved, always scared that there would be something – grisly shadow-teeth closing on his fingers.
'Powys?' said Miss Endicott. Her small eyes coming slowly to life, like the valves in an old radio.
As Arnold screamed.
It was a sound Powys had never heard from Arnold, nor from any dog. 'Hey.' He bent down and grabbed at him. Arnold's head came up, his ears flat, his eyes bulging with fear and a kind of fever; when Powys reached for him he lunged and snapped, his teeth clicking together in the air, once, like a mousetrap.
And then skittered away, his three sets of claws scraping frantically at the flags until he reached the oak door and began to hurl himself at it, as if he wanted to smash his own skull, break his own neck.
FIVE
'Don't do this. Woolly,' Sam said. Whatever you got in mind, don't do it.'
At Woolly's shop, he'd found Hughie Painter and his brother Gav helping to board up the broken window.
Woolly was loading stuff into his Renault, Looking uncharacteristically dowdy in dark jeans, a green waterproof jacket. He'd cut off his pony-tail, shaved his head at the front. He looked older and unhappy.
'Where you gonner go?' Sam planting himself' between Woolly and the Renault's raised back door.
'Well, first off,' Woolly said, 'I'm going to the cops. To confess.'
'To what?'
'To whatever they wanner charge me with, man. Get it over, that's the main thing. Then I'm off to walk the line. Park the car some place, take my bags and my tent. Walk the line and think. Maybe when I get back, somebody'll've nicked the car, save me some hassle, 'cause I don't really wanner see that car again.'
Sam shook his head, mystified. 'Sorry, Woolly. Slight generation gap problem here. Walk the Line – is this some old Johnny Cash reference I wouldn't understand?'
Woolly smiled. 'Sam, man… the St Michael line. I need to think. I need to walk until I'm shagged out, camp out by the line and pray something sorts itself out. People don't wanner see me. I'm bad news, no getting round that.'
'No,' Sam said. 'You're wrong. Completely. You're the best councillor we ever had. 'Sides which, you'll die of exposure out there. Look… Here's Hughie – he's got kids. Mr Fertile. Yet, here he is, nailing boards across your window. Hughie, come on, is Woolly gonner weather this one or isn't he?'
'Ain't that simple, Sammy,' said Big Hughie. 'My first reaction, I'm angry. I think why'd he do that? Is his brain even working? Then I think, well, he's a friend, he's a good guy. Best councillor, as you said, we ever had. Besides which, it could've been any one of us.'
Hughie brushed sawdust from his beard.
'What other people're gonner think, though, in the final analysis, I can't say. There's a lot of shit going round right now, Sammy, lot of extremism. So, well… maybe Woolly does need to get away for a while.'
