… he's on his feet, and is he mad… this guy's face is… this guy's face is… this guy's face is…
White.
CHAPTER VI
The plump woman in the village Post Office looked like a chief Girl Guide, whatever they called them now. Also, although she wore no wedding ring, she struck Moira as a member of the Mothers' Union.
'I wonder, um, could you help me? I'm looking for Willie Wagstaff.' She'd forgotten to ask Cathy where Willie lived, and Cathy had set out to drive fifteen miles to the hospital to visit her dad.
'Willie? Have you been to his house?'
Moira smiled. 'Well, no, that s…'
'Sorry, luv, I'm not very bright this morning.' The postmistress rolled her eyes. 'Go across street, turn left and after about thirty yards you'll come to an entry. Go in there, and you'll see a cottage either side of you and it's the one on the left.'
Moira bought ten postage stamps and two packets of Arrowmint chewing gum in case she ran into Alfred Beckett again.
There was no answer at Willie's house, a narrow little cottage backing on to other people's yards. Moira wondered if he lived alone. She squashed her nose to the front window. There was a bowl of flowers in it, with ferns. A woman's touch. Females had always been drawn to Willie, born to be mothered. In the old days, it used to be said that otherwise worldly mature ladies would turn to blancmange when little Mr Wagstaff smiled coyly and let them put him to bed.
Moira was not that mature, yet. The reason she needed Willie was to talk about Matt, and also to meet his mother. She came out of the entry, unsure what to do next. There was no one else in the place she knew, except…
At the bottom of the village street, Moira found herself facing the pub, the last building, apart from a couple of wooden sheds, before the street widened into the causeway across the peatbog.
This was the difficult one.
Against the white morning, the pub looked hulking and sinister, like a gaol or a workhouse. Stonework so murky that in places it might have been stained by the peat. Outside on the forecourt, a man in an apron was cleaning windows.
A red-haired woman appeared in the porch, handed the man a steaming mug of tea or coffee, stopped and stared across the forecourt. Waited in the doorway, watching Moira.
You ready for this, hen? 'They're not Ancient Monuments, these circles. Ancient, possibly. Monuments… well, hardly.'
Joel Beard kicked at a stubby stone.
'No signs pointing um out, anyroad,' said Sam Davis. 'Not even proper tracks.'
'That's because they're not in the care of any Government or local authority department. Unlike, say, Stonehenge, where you have high-security fences and tunnel-access. Which is why these places are so open to abuse.'
The Reverend Beard, in his dark green Goretex jacket and his hiking boots, striding through the waist-high bracken. Action priest, Sam thought cynically.
'Lights, you say?'
Although they were less than a hundred yards from the first circle, it wasn't even visible yet. This was the most direct route from Sam's farmhouse, but he reckoned that mob last night must have come in from behind. over the hill.
'Cocky bastards,' Sam said, breathing harder, keeping pace with difficulty, due to shorter legs. 'Bold as brass. If wife hadn't kicked up, I'd've been up theer last night.'
Sam bunched his fingers into fists. 'I'd give um bloody devil worship.'
'I know how you feel,' the minister said, 'but you did the right thing in coming to me. This is my job. This is what I'm trained for.'
Sam Davis watched the big blond man flexing his lips, baring his teeth, steaming at the mouth in the cold air. It was all Esther's fault, this, making him drag the Church into it.
'Look, Mr Beard…'
'Joel…'
'Aye. Thing is, I don't want to turn this into some big bloody crusade. All I want is these buggers off me property. Know what I mean?'
The Reverend Beard stopped in his tracks. 'Sam, have you ever had foot-and-mouth disease on your land?'
'God. Be all I need.'
'Swine fever? Fowl pest? Sheep scab?'
'Give us a chance, I've only been farming two year.'
'The point I'm making,' Joel Beard said patiently, moving on, as the bracken came to an end and the ground levelled out, 'is that when a farmer's land is infected by a contagious disease, it's not simply a question of getting rid of the afflicted livestock. There are well-established procedures. For the purpose of, shall we say, decontamination.'
'Aye, but… let's get down to some basic facts, Joel. Who exactly are these fellers? Your mate, the Vicar… now he reckoned it's just kids, right?'
… could probably tuck a couple under each arm…
'Kids?' said Joel Beard.
'For kicks,' Sam said. 'Like drink. Drugs. Shoplifting. Kicks.'
'Hans Gruber said that?'
Sam shrugged. 'Summat like that. Right, this is it.'
'I beg your pardon…'
'The main circle. You're in t'middle of it, Joel. Told you it weren't much.'
Around them, sunk into tufts of dry, yellow grace, were these seven small stones, stained with mosses and lichens, none more than a couple of feet high, in a circle about fifteen feet in diameter. Sam found it hard to credit them being here, in this formation, for about four thousand years.
'Don't know much about these things meself,' Sam said. 'Some folk reckon they was primitive astronomical observatories. You could stand in um and see where t'sun were risin'. Or summat.'
Personally, he didn't give a shit. By his left boot were two flat stone slabs, pushed together. The ground had clearly been disturbed. There were blackened twigs and ashes on the slabs.
'… but what that's got to do wi' bloody sacrifices is…'
'Sam!'
The Reverend Joel Beard shot up, like a charge of electricity had gone through him, and then, yelling 'Get back!', seized Sam Davis by the shoulders and shoved him out of the circle.
'What the…?' Sam struggled out of Joel's grip, stumbled back into the bracken.
Joel was still in the circle, swaying like a drunk, swallowing big, hollow breaths through his mouth. His body bent into a fighting stance, hands clawed, eyes blinking.
Sam Davis stared at him. He was going to kill Esther for landing him with this big tosser.
'There's evil here,' Joel said.
Stupid sod looked ready for war. All that bothered Sam was how close the battlefield was to his kids. Down below, half a mile away, his farmhouse and its barns and buildings looked rickety and pathetic, like matchstick models he could kick over with the tip of his welly.
Joel Beard had closed his eyes. The sun, shuffling about behind weak clouds, had actually given him a faint halo.
For getting on ten minutes, Joel didn't move, except, at one point, to lift up both hands, on outstretched arms, as if he was waiting, Sam thought, for somebody to pass him a sack of coal. Then he spoke.
