He went back to the drawing room. Vicky was tearfully cradling Timmy in Herbert’s throne, but Timmy’s eyes were fluttering open as he came out of his hypnotised state and he was clinging tightly to his mother.
Martin and Katharine were standing beside them. Martin was smiling and shaking his head with relief.
‘That priest, Thomas… has he gone now?’ he asked Rob.
‘He’s totally gone, Mart. He just fell apart. There’s nothing of him left but bones and dust.’
‘That’s all he deserved. It was him who trapped me. When I was stuck in that room, my mind was like a bloody kaleidoscope and I couldn’t remember why. Now I can. I was dozing off down here on the sofa after we’d come back from Tavistock, and he came into the room. Father Bloody Thomas. And guess who he was holding by his hand. Timmy. And Timmy was sobbing his heart out. I told him to let Timmy go and when he said he wouldn’t, I told him that he was a disgrace to the cloth. That was when he put out his hand and he chanted me.’
‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Katharine. ‘Are we allowed to leave?’
‘Are you joking?’ said Rob. ‘You’d have to nail my feet to the floor to keep me here. But there’s just one thing.’
He went over to the fireplace and picked up the poker. He left the drawing room, crossed the hallway and mounted the stairs.
‘Mr Russell?’ called DI Holley, but Rob took no notice. He reached the landing and strode along the corridor to the stained-glass window of Old Dewey – or Esus, as he now knew him to be.
Gripping the poker in both hands, he smashed it into the black figure with its back turned. Then he smashed the hounds, one after the other, and the sky, and the trees, and the moorlands, until the window frame was empty.
When he returned to the drawing room, Ada looked up at him and she must have guessed what he had just done. She stood up, and came over, and took hold of his hand. She didn’t have to say thank you – the expression in her eyes was enough.
She leaned close to him and whispered,
‘Thar be piskies up to Dartymoor
An’ tidden gude yew zay there bain’t.’
41
Rob switched off his computer and sat back, lacing his hands behind his head.
‘Is he asleep now?’ he asked Vicky, as she came into the dining room.
‘No, but he’s very dozy. I read him that story about Chris Cross in Snappyland. He loves that.’
‘Maybe we should learn how to hypnotise him.’
‘Oh, don’t say that. At least Doctor Ferris said that it hadn’t affected him.’
‘He doesn’t seem to have too much of a memory of being stuck like that. All I can say is thank God for that.’
‘I think we can thank God for a lot of things, Rob.’
Rob stood up and pushed in his chair. ‘I just want to be shot of that house, that’s all. DI Holley said it was going to be at least three weeks before they finish their forensic examination. He’s keeping an open mind about what happened to Francis and Father Salter. At least he said he was.’
Vicky came up and rested her hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s all over, Rob. And it’s all over because of you. You were so brave.’
Rob looked away to see his face reflected in his computer screen. He didn’t want to think about Esus staring at him hatefully, upside down.
They left the dining room and went through to the living room. They were crossing the hall when they heard a high, piping noise from upstairs.
Rob stopped and said, ‘What’s that? Is that Timmy?’
They stood still and listened, and the piping went on – a thin, plaintive, repetitive tune, like a breeze whistling through bracken on the ridge of some desolate moor.
‘That can’t be Timmy,’ said Vicky, but all the same she mounted the stairs and Rob followed her.
They eased open Timmy’s bedroom door. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed in his Marvel pyjamas, in the dark. He was holding a stick-like instrument to his lips and playing it.
Rob switched on his light. ‘Timmy – what are you doing? What’s that you’ve got there?’
Timmy said nothing, but held it up so that Rob could see it.
It was a chicken-bone, which he had made into a flute.
Devon words interpreted
angletwitch – fidgety or disobedient child
brimmel – brambles
chrisemores – unbaptised babies
crocky down – crouch down
dawcock – stupid fool
dimpsey – dusk or twilight
dreckly – immediately or as soon as possible
dummon – ‘dumb one’ affectionate term for wife
gurt – big, but also ‘very’ as in ‘gurt lush’
kiffy – left-handed
shag – friend or mate
raymes – skeleton
About the author
Graham Masterton is mainly recognized for his horror novels but he has also been a prolific writer of thrillers, disaster novels and historical epics, as well as one of the world’s most influential series of sex instruction books. He became a newspaper reporter at the age of 17 and was appointed editor of Penthouse magazine at only 24. His first horror novel The Manitou was filmed with Tony Curtis playing the lead, and three of his short horror stories were filmed by Tony Scott for The Hunger TV series. Ten years ago Graham turned his hand to crime novels and White Bones, set in Ireland, was a Kindle phenomenon, selling over 100,000 copies in a month. This has been followed by ten more bestselling crime novels featuring Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire, the latest of which is The Last Drop of Blood. In 2019 Graham was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association. The Prix Graham Masterton
