Beneath the Tor (25 page)

“I'm a bit … er … yeah, off work with some sort of virus … best not get too close.” He wasn't making much attempt to lie convincingly, perhaps because he'd been caught so far
off-guard
.

“Man flu, is it?”

“If you like.”

“Rey, you never take a day off.”

“Been a crackdown on bugs. They force us to work from home, now. I don't want you catching it.”

“Women can't get man flu.”

“I'm sorry you've … found me like this. I look shit.”

“Nah … I like you in bedtime gear and stubble. Sexy.”

He regarded me, taking in my words, not breaking into a smile. His eyes were bleary.

“I need to sit down, Rey. If I don't, I'll drop, I swear it.”

By the cold radiator was Rey's single comfy chair, piled with open files. I lifted them from the seat, trying not to disrupt things.

“Yeah—just—on the floor is good.”

“What are you working on?”

“It's nothing.”

He looked done in … sucked dry. For the first time, I realized that I could sometimes be the stronger one in our relationship.

“I have to talk to you about
Marty-Mac
.”

“What?” Rey was instantly on alert.

“I've been worrying about it all, Rey.”

“
Marty-Mac
won't be bothering you anymore. He's dead.”

“You're … glad he's dead.”

“No, don't get me wrong—”

“You wanted him dead.”

He took three steps and was across the small room. “'Course I didn't want him fucking dead.”

“Swearing won't help, Rey.”

“I'm a law enforcement officer. I protect the innocent.”

“Marty wasn't exactly innocent, was he?”

I let the moments tick on. Surely he trusted me enough to tell me what was going on. Surely if there was one person he might confide in, it would be me. As you would confide in your partner. But we weren't partners. I was his girlfriend,
a
girlfriend, someone to meet in a pub and take home for a hump in the hay. Not someone to confide in.

I wondered if his wife knew. Had he told Lesley of his suspension? Had she come round to clean the bedsit and found him in bed late into the morning?

“You think I got him killed,” said Rey. “It's my fault? You think that?”

“How could I think that? I don't even know your connection to the man.”

“Yeah you do. I said. We knew each other at school. I knew lots of people at school. Most of Bridgwater and surrounds. I've never been friends with
Marty-Mac
, but no one is listening.”

His hands brushed the arm of the chair I was in, as if afraid to touch me. I so longed for him say it, get it out in the open.
I am under suspicion for his murder.
I snatched at his hands and held them tight. “What you've got to do, is work out who killed him.”

“Yeah.” He tried a grin. “Not a difficult case, for God's sake. Mac had friends who would quickly change to enemies. Who would happily get someone to go at him with a bit of house brick, if the circumstances allowed. I don't know why they can't see that.”

“They?”

He stared at me for almost a full minute.

“Rey,” I repeated. “Who are ‘they'?”

He snatched his hands from mine and turned on his heel. I think I made a sort of sound, not a word, not, “please” or “no, don't go”, but rather, a wail of distress, knowing he'd rather walk away than tell me. He swung away into the kitchen area of the bedsit. It was not anger. He'd walked away from me in shame.

He reached into a wall cupboard and drew out a beer, flipped off the top and took a swig from the neck. “You can tell me,” I said, without moving. “Unload whatever there is to unload. I love you.”

That unnerved him. I'd told him I loved him before, several times—I knew because I was keeping count—but he never responded. He didn't seem to be able to say “I love you” back. Didn't mean he didn't love me.

There was a pause that grew and grew.

Finally, Rey put his beer down, quite gently, and drew himself up, as if this was the superintendent's office and he had been called there to give his account.

“
Marty-Mac
has been a petty criminal from—well, from early days, I suspect. He'd been in prison a couple of times, and from what I can make out he didn't like the experience. He's weak, a loser, the sort that always comes under the heel of someone else. Prison would be hell for him. He came out the second time and tried to go straight. He got this job on a building site. Something with a county council connection—the firm who got the tender for the work had given the mother of cheap quotes. Stupid. Cheap tenders always attract the cowboys and criminal elements.”

“
Marty-Mac
was the criminal element?”

“Not at all. He's trying his utmost to go straight, right? Do a bit of roofing, a bit of bricklaying, that sort of thing. It's not easy to go straight for an
ex-con
. The only people who will think of employing you are people who want something from you.”

I got up. It was silly to carry on this conversation with metres of space between us. I went over to him and slid my hands around the waist band of his lounge pants. “What did they want with Marty?”

“A factotum, I think. A runner, a driver, that sort of thing. A
go-between
. Years back—ten, fifteen years back, before he did his first stretch—Marty had been my man. My snout; my informer. In those days, we'd do things on the quiet. Just a word, just a fiver passed over for beer money. Now, things have changed. We have to document the lot; there's a fund we use to pay informers.
Informants
, they're called.” He lay his cheek against mine and I felt the dry chuckle in his throat. “They're still snouts and grasses, of course.”

I'd been holding my breath. I let it out with my words. “You did it on the quiet.”

“Yeah. Just this once. He knew materials were being passed into the worksite which were poor in quality—dangerous in quality—and that certain officials had enabled this to happen. He came to tell me and I started asking round. That was a bad move.”

“You had no written records?”

“No proof of evidence obtained. Only the
tip-off
from Marty, who is not my documented informant.”

“It seems so insignificant.”

“We're talking major investment. People with a lot of money looking to make further killings. If they didn't like how I was asking my questions, it would be relatively simple to get me out their way.”

“If you were easy to remove, how much easier would Marty-
Mac be?”

“Trouble is, I don't have an alibi, not for early evening Saturday. And I do have the means, motive, and—”

“Opportunity.” I'd watched the crime series. I knew that didn't make him guilty. “Can't the powers that be at the station see that you'd be the last person to want him out of the way?”

“Apparently not. And although it looked like a random attack, there were a lot of wounds.”

“A lot of wounds?”

“Yeah. Extremely vicious.”

“
The Green Knight has been taken down.
” I could barely hear myself over the buzzing in my ears as I thought about Morgan le Fay. “
And others will perish likewise'.
”

“What're you on about?”

I shook my head, thinking how
Marty-Mac
was beaten to the ground with a bit of brick. Gerald Evens had been attacked with a paving stone. Not a mugging, I was thinking—it was clear Gerald wouldn't have money on him.

I looked up. “
Marty-Mac
wasn't mugged. He still had his phone.”

“How do you know that?”

“Pippa let it out.”

“You've seen her?”

“She thought she'd get something from me. She was wrong. She's brutal, Rey. Ruthless. The sort of stickler who has to do everything by the book. She wants your job.”

I heard him swallow hard. Silent moments passed, then I felt his chest shake. So tight was it to mine, that I shook with it. He was crying, keeping the silent wracked sobs inside him in the hope I'd never know.

I clamped him to me and hung on. My eyes stayed dry. I felt steely. I was prepared to fight to the death for my man. I was prepared to scratch the bitch's eyes out.

twenty-five

anthony

The Kaiser woke me
on Wednesday morning with the dawn. How
could
he? I'd had barely four hours sleep. Immediately I was awake—bright-eyed and alert and infused with cockeyed promise.

It was crazy to be so happy and
hope-filled
, but I couldn't help it. Rey's difficulties were not one wit removed, but at least we could face them together, as a couple. I couldn't solve his problems, but I could support him.

I shifted with care over the mattress, so that I could feast my gaze on the shorn head lying next to me. Rey was on his back, his head lodged between the pillows. We'd driven to mine in the Vauxhall and picked up a bottle of something deeply red on the way. Once that was all finished up, we went to bed.

It was the first time we'd made love in a while, and it felt wonderful … it
was
wonderful
—
renewed and thrilling.

Even so, a tiny spasm of disappointment trickled through me as I gazed at Rey's sleeping form. As far as I understood, relationships start out with two people wound round each other's necks. Eventually that developed into compromises and
home-sharing
. We had not reached that stage yet, and we wouldn't, until we'd resolved the unfinished business of Rey moving in with me. I didn't dare reintroduce the idea at the moment. He'd said, “give me some time to think” and since then, we'd both had other things to think about.

I was zinging from our lovemaking … his fingers on my skin, the way he, too, closed his eyes as our kisses got deeper … I knew I should count the blessings the goddess had granted me before wanting more.

Rey let out a bellowing snore. He was in that deep pattern of sleep that comes with REM and vivid dreams. If I woke him now, would he tell me the dreams he'd forget later in the morning? Would he confide his nightmares to me?

Probably he'd bark at me, roll over, and go back to sleep.

The Kaiser crowed again. I pulled back the curtains. A glimmer of light was rising in the east. A good time for a garden meditation.

It was ten before Rey staggered downstairs. His eyes were full of blear. Mine were summertime bright; my buoyant state of mind had driven me to make pancakes for breakfast and while I was flipping them in the pan I had done a lot of thinking. More and more small pieces about Marty-Mac's death had fallen into place. I'd put the pancakes to warm and dialled Brice's number to ask him if he'd had any further emails.

“I've put her on my spam list, Sabbie,” Brice had said. “I never want to hear from that woman again.”

“Please … could you check your junk mail? I need to know if she's sent another.”

He had not asked why. A minute or two later, an email dropped into my box. When I'd read it a tightness wound round my stomach that was almost elation.
I couldn't wait to discuss my thoughts with Rey, but I didn't want to bombard him with them, as soon as he sat down to breakfast.

I slid a
two-cup
cafetière over to him. I had a pot of mixed herb leaves. “Rey, why don't you stay for a bit? Let me feed you up. You need all your strength to fight this thing.”

“Yeah? Well … if I got pancakes every morning …”

“Except, I have to go to a funeral on Friday.”

“Is this the girl on the Tor … Alys, wasn't it?”

“I've been asked to officiate, with Wolfsbane.”

“What's a pagan funeral like?”

“Wolfs has done a couple of them. He's lent me a transcript of a ceremony he uses. It's nothing scary, or heavy. There won't be many surprises. Nowadays, most funerals are more a celebration of the life lived, aren't they? Brice wants lots of music and a slideshow screening of pictures of Alys from when she was born onward, that sort of thing. We'll be using the presence of certain deities and spirits to help Alys's soul move on. If we decide to stay, we can help Brice scatter her ashes.”

“Stay?”

“It's in central London. I was going to ask the Wraxalls to look after the hens, but if you're here I'd come straight back.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Early Friday morning. It will mostly be over by early evening. I could jump on a return train.”

“You're not worrying, are you? I will be fine, Sabbie. I've done nothing wrong.”

“No. Nothing.” I could wait no longer. I slid the printout of the fourth email over the breakfast bar.

Rey groaned. “Is there any hope that this isn't what I think it is?”

“No hope at all.”

Rey took his time drizzling honey over his pancakes. He read the email, and, I could see, was reading it a second time. When I dropped the other printouts beside his plate, he took his time with those too.

“You're tying up your gumshoe laces,” he said. “I can detect the smell of amateur sleuth from over here.”

“You want to hear what I've been thinking?”

“Do I have a choice?”

I flashed him a pretty smile. “Nope.”

“Fire ahead, Miss Marlow.”

“There are patterns. I'm not sure Morgan le Fay means there to be, but I can see them.”

“Okay; good. An investigating team would start off, if they had nothing else, with that.”

“Morgan le Fay sends the emails at distinct moments. The first arrived only hours after Alys had died. The second as Brice drove to the inquest. The third one in response to Brice; he'd emailed the entire workshop group, asking us to meet at the Chalice Well.

“And this one?” Rey picked up the fourth sheet and waved it. “The funeral?”

“Maybe … just hang on in there, I'm getting to number four.” I took a breath. I wanted to do this my way. “There is one knight per email. Green Knight
.
Red Knight. Foolish Knight.”

“Black Knight,” Rey read aloud.

“Then there are the locations,” I went on. “The Tor first, the Abbey second, the Chalice Well in the third email.
Blood runs deep through the Hollow Hill.
It felt like a warning. The Chalice Well is sublime, a haven of peace—Brice wanted us all to meet in the gardens—I made them go to the Rifleman's Arms instead. Blood had already been viciously spilt, and I didn't want it to happen again.”

Rey concentrated on pouring himself a dark coffee which smelt so luxurious I almost wanted a cup. But he stayed silent, and I pressed on. “However, one of us did go into the Chalice Well. Anagarika.”

“
Ana-
what
? Christ, Sabbie, your friends have some seriously strange names.”

“You should meet the guy. Apparently, Anag did see something while he was there—he ended up with a split lip because of what he saw. That does makes me wonder what might have happened, had the rest of us gone in.”

Rey lifted his cup and stared into it as if it was a black mirror that held the answers. “A team will investigate the ‘mights', it's true. But they'd keep them to one side. Fact is, Sabbie, you will never know whether you'd've been safe in the gardens. In fact, despite these patterns you've detected, you still haven't proved a thing.”

He lifted the printout of the fourth email and read aloud.

The Black Knight was a butcher. His name was Pride. He cut down the Holy Thorn. He raped a maiden of the well. And he has been dispatched. Limbs sliced through. Head taken with a single sweep of the sword. In blood we are revenged. His slaying was expedient. Side-by-side I will walk with my companion-at-arms into the Hollow Hill. Angels flank us. We are ready to ring the Bell of Doomsday. The knights of Avalon will wake. The King will raise his sword. Each hurt shall be avenged and Logres will be healed.

“A new knight,” I said, ticking my points off on my fingers. “Black. A new location. And a new reason to alert Brice. It's not just the funeral, Rey. It's because finally, someone has died.
Marty-Mac
.”

Rey stared at me for half a minute. He wasn't laughing, trying to shut me up or even coming back with a
counter-argument
. Finally, he said, “Haven't you noticed? Each email is written as if to mollify pain. Morgan le Fay seems to think Brice will be pleased to hear from her, as if she's reporting in, bringing the director of operations up to speed.”

Rey was right. The letters didn't threaten; on the contrary they were saying all would be well; that Alys's death would be avenged. That the land would be saved from destruction.

“Brice is trying to cope with the death of his wife. It's possible that his mind has got scrambled. Losing the woman you loved might turn you crazy, lead you to invent answers, lead you to search for retribution, even if no one was to blame.” Rey pushed his final forkful of pancake into his mouth. Honey oozed from one corner of his mouth.

“Yes …” My voice sounded faded. Perhaps Brice had suffered more psychological damage than I'd seen him show, but I could not believe he had gone as far as creating an untraceable email address to send messages to himself. “If he has invented Morgan,” I asked, “why have people been attacked? Died?”

“No one has died because of these emails.
Marty-Mac
was already in jeopardy. He was in above his head. He could have asked for police protection, but he grabbed the chance of bail and left himself wide open. He was eliminated for having a big mouth which was about to flap wider under
cross-examination
. His death isn't linked to this at all.”

“Let me just explain the pattern in this last email. A Black Knight.
Marty-Mac
was all in black when I saw him the day he died. And new location, the Angel Shopping Centre.
Angels flank us,
according to Morgan.” Something flashed at the back of my thoughts as I remembered what had happened in the Angel Shopping Centre. It was like a child's torch, a beam of light directed through a dark window after bedtime. A signal—on, off, and on again. Not an idea, more an awareness. Rey interrupted it, and it flew away.

“The angel connection is tenuous.
Marty-Mac
was killed in his own back garden.”

“But the Red Knight
was
attacked at Glastonbury Abbey. Gerald Evens was a volunteer all kitted out in a knight's costume to show tourists round the abbey grounds. He nearly died in that attack.”

Rey wheezed out a breath, as if throwing in the towel. “Okay, Sabbie. I do recall you mentioning this guy's name. But at the most you only have two knights. There are four all together.”

Rey thought he'd stumped me, but I hadn't told him yet about Yew's story. “Anthony Bale was attacked with a stone as he walked back to his hostel. He was returning from his night on the Tor. This was solstice morning, at around the time Brice received his first email. And I honestly can't see how Brice would ever have known about that incident—”

“Slow down here. Who is Anthony Bale?”

“Anthony Bale was so distressed at Alys's death, he had one of those giggly reactions. People do sometimes laugh at death, don't they, an automatic response. He caught an early bus from Glastonbury to Yeovil, where he was attacked. Not badly. Got up, walked on.”

“You know this person?”

“No, but Yew does.”

“Who? You?”

“Yew. His chosen name is a tree, Rey. A sacred tree of the dark winter. Grown in churchyards because of its association with death.”

Rey raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I can't keep up. Really, it's beyond my simple capabilities. One moment we're discussing grievous bodily harm, the next we're on to death trees.”

I grinned. This sounded more like the old Rey. “Yew is the tree of great age, death, and reincarnation, because it regenerates itself each year of growth. Oak is the tree of the druid, solid and host to many. Ash is the tree of the world. Odin initiated himself into wisdom on it, although he did lose an eye to the crows as he hung there …” I trailed off. “Sorry.”

“So, what is the tree of the lover?”

“Oh! The honeysuckle.”

“That's hardly a tree.”

“It's a woody shrub, but it lives to embrace another. If you bring the blossoms into your bedroom, the scent gives you erotic dreams.”

“Then you are honeysuckle, Sabbie.”

Rey caught me completely be surprise. He took my hand and buried soft lips into my fingers, my wrist, my palm.

My pulse raced, yet I didn't seem to need breathe. Each kiss suspended me in delight, holding me between this plane and a higher one. The kisses went on forever, as if time was suspended while Rey held me to his lips.

We're on our way …

The last words of a brief dream. My eyelids scratched as I forced them open. I was in the passenger seat of my own car. I checked the dashboard clock. Yeovil was a longer drive than I anticipated; I'd been asleep for the best part of an hour.

“You okay?” Rey was easing the Vauxhall round a street corner, searching for the hostel.

I shifted in my seat and sipped from my water bottle.
We're on our way.
It had been the fleeting though that Rey had earlier driven away, the something that had sat unnoticed on the edge of my mind—a hidden thing, crucial, dropped into place like a card trick in my car dream.

I thought back through all the subject matter we'd covered since I'd turned up at Rey's yesterday: Yew's story about Anthony, Pippa's stab in the back, Brice's relationship to his emails,
Marty-Mac
's death and its connection to the other attacks, Juke's appearance in the Angel café—

Juke. It was Juke's voice in my head. His words in my dream.
We're on our way.
My
chin snapped up. In my mind's eye, I rewound that moment—Juke squaring up to
Marty-Mac
in the Angel café. He'd looked round, searching for someone. I'd thought he was worried
Marty-Mac
would return.