House of Bones (20 page)

“That's right, yes.”

“And then your friends from the office arrived because they were worried about you?”

“That's right.”

“Why were they so worried? They didn't have any reason to think that Mr Vane was going to hurt you, did they? Or did they?”

“They were just worried. Mr Rogers had disappeared when he went to see 66 Mountjoy Avenue and I suppose they didn't want anything like that to happen to me.”

“So then what? You and your friends left the house, went out into the garden, and stuck a scaffolding pole in the flowerbed?”

“That's right.”

“And you did that as a kind of makeshift lightning conductor?”

“We didn't want the house to be struck by lightning.”

Inspector Carter blew out his cheeks in exasperation. “Your friends are saying the same thing. But this is where I lose you, John. What on earth made you think that the house was going to be struck by lightning? I mean, what are the odds on that? And why should you care so much anyway?”

“The house was on our books. We had a duty to protect it.”

“Whenever there's a thunderstorm, do you go round to
all
of the houses on your books and stick scaffolding poles in the garden?”

“Well, no, we don't. It would take too long.”

Carter covered his eyes with his hands. He was a man trying very, very hard to understand. “You didn't want the house to be struck by lightning, but as a consequence of your sticking a scaffolding pole in the flowerbed, your colleague Mr David Cleat was killed and the whole place was blown to smithereens.”

“We didn't realize that would happen.”

“No, well. Our scene-of-crimes officer can't work out how it happened, either. Normally, a lightning strike would have gone right into the ground, and caused nothing more than limited burns. In this case, however, it looks as if it travelled horizontally along a straight line, three or four miles north and three or four miles south. Apart from killing Mr Cleat and destroying 66 Mountjoy Avenue it caused about £150,000 worth of damage. Sheds, conservatories, that kind of thing.”

“I know. We're sorry about that.”

“Sorry? Yes, so am I. But I can't exactly charge you for sticking a scaffolding pole in the ground, can I?”

“I don't know. I don't know the law that well.”

Inspector Carter gave him a sharp sideways look to make sure that he wasn't taking the mickey. Then he said, “What
I
can't work out is what happened to Mr Vane. His car was still outside, so he didn't drive away from the house. I can't see him
walking
away in a thunderstorm like that, can you? So far as we know, he wasn't in the house when it blew up. At least, we haven't yet found his remains.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door and Sergeant Bynoe came in. “Have a word, guv?”

He bent over and murmured something in Carter's ear. John could see the Inspector's eyes widen.

Carter waited until Bynoe had left the room, and then he stood up and paced around the table. “We
have
discovered some remains, as it happens. The fire brigade were demolishing an unsafe wall at the back of the house when they came across a room full of human skeletons. Seventy or eighty people, by the looks of it. Completely bricked up, completely inaccessible. And yet at least one of the skeletons looks as if it's only a few days old.”

He leaned over John and breathed peppermint breath-freshener all over him. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about
that
, would you?”

John shook his head violently.

Inspector Carter kept on staring at him for almost half a minute. Then he stood up straight and walked back around the table. “I hope you're not hiding something from me, John. Because if you are, you could be in a lot of trouble.”

John said nothing. He could just imagine how Carter would react if he told him the truth. And
besides, he was growing impatient to join Lucy and the others.

They had business to attend to.

He met them at The Feathers and they had cheese rolls and crisps for lunch. They were all looking tired and bruised, and they got a few funny looks from the other people in the pub.

Lucy said, “We've all had a pretty hard morning, so let's just start with a couple of houses, shall we? How about Abingdon Gardens and Greyhound Road? Abingdon Gardens first, that's the nearest. Then tomorrow we can work out a plan to go round the country and sort out all the rest of them.”

She lifted the bunch of duplicate keys from her handbag. “One down and twenty-six to go.”

Courtney said, “I've got a mallet and a pickaxe in the car. I just hope the police don't pick me up for going equipped.”

They left the pub and drove in Courtney's BMW to Abingdon Gardens. After yesterday's storm the air was much clearer, and the sun was shining. John sat in the back of the car with Lucy and she reached over and held his hand.

“You realize that now Mr Vane's gone we're out of a job?” said Lucy.

“They haven't found his body yet.”

“It probably burned to ashes. You saw how hot that fire was.”

“Even if he
did
manage to get out, he certainly wouldn't keep us lot on, would he?”

“It's Cleaty I feel sorry for.”

“Yes, but he knew what Mr Vane was doing and all he did was look the other way.”

They reached the house at the end of Abingdon Gardens. As Lucy climbed out of the car she said, “This place still gives me the creeps.”

Even though the sun was shining, the house looked damp and dingy and neglected. Its windows were like empty eyes. The three of them approached it with trepidation and climbed the front steps. Lucy was first and opened the door. Courtney followed her with his mallet and his pickaxe.

The house was chilly inside. They paused for a moment in the hallway and listened, but all they could hear was the persistent warbling of a pigeon sitting on one of the chimneys.

“Come on,” said Lucy, and led the way into the living-room.

The fireplace here wasn't as large as 66 Mountjoy Avenue, and it was tiled in green mottled ceramic. All the same, it shared one essential feature – a rough-hewn block of stone about the size of a housebrick, in the centre just above the grate. There were five twig-shaped characters hewn on the stone – runes.

“Right,” said John. “The sooner we get that stone out, the better.”

Courtney took off his smart yellow coat, rolled up his sleeves, and lifted the pickaxe. “Stand clear, everybody. Man at work.”

He hit the stone with his first blow, chipping some of it away. He hit it again, and this time he managed to crack the mortar which held it in place. He hit it a third time, and it dropped out of the fireplace and on to the floor.

“There, easy. Now all we have to do is smash it to bits.”

“It's like Bath stone, it's pretty soft.”

Courtney raised his mallet and gave the stone a blow which broke it in half. He was about to swing again when the door to the dining-room suddenly and silently swung open. Lucy jumped in shock, and Courtney lowered his mallet.

“Don't worry,” said John, stepping across to close it. “It's only the wi—”

The door swung open wider and into the room limped Mr Vane. His eyes were wide and wild and the side of his face was caked with dark dried blood. Both of his hands were heavily bandaged with torn strips of sheet. He stood staring at them, saying nothing, his face engraved with bitterness and hatred.

“We thought you were dead,” said Lucy, at last. “Do you need to see a doctor?”

Mr Vane limped into the middle of the room and looked down at the broken stone. Then he stared at
each of them in turn. “Have you any idea what you've done?”

“I hope we've managed to stop you sacrificing any more people,” said Lucy.

“People!” spat Mr Vane. “You don't know the half of what this world of ours is all about. You don't have any conception! You speak to me of
people
! I speak to you of
gods
! I speak to you of men with magic that could move the hills! I speak of their surviving spirits, who could one day rise up again and work their sorcery so that –
people
– like you would have to kneel down and worship them!”

“Whatever you think, you didn't have any right to
kill
” said John.

Mr Vane ignored him and slowly circled the room, his right foot dragging. “I managed to get out of the house before you sent that lightning-bolt along the ley line.” His mouth worked in anguish and he was so furious that he could barely speak. “That lightning-bolt evaporated hundreds of Druid spirits. Some of the greatest names from our Druidic past. You could hear a scream running along the ley lines from one side of the country to the other. A whole magical heritage has been lost. A whole civilization. It was history itself that died yesterday.”

Lucy said, “People are history, not ghosts.”

Mr Vane touched the broken Druidic stone with his foot. “And now what are you planning to do?
Close
all
of the gateways between the real world and the magical world? What practical, pragmatic,
unimaginative
young creatures you are! You don't want anything dangerous in your lives, do you? You don't want anything which you can't explain.”

He took a deep, quivering breath. “I've got news for you youngsters. You're not going to succeed. Those gateways are going to stay open. There are still some Druid spirits left; and when today's Druids die, their spirits will live on, too. I may have wearied of giving them sacrifices, and I may not have been able to persuade you to do it, John. But I will find somebody who will. There is always somebody who can be tempted by the idea of immortality. The Druids will still survive in this country long after you have been forgotten.”

“I don't think so,” said Courtney.

“You don't
think
so?”

“That's right. For the simple reason that we're going to stop you.”

Mr Vane smiled at them, and then he actually laughed.

“What's so funny?” John challenged him.

“You are,” said Mr Vane. “You really don't know just how much you amuse me with all of your misdirected bravado.” He lifted his head and called out, “
Aedd! Aedd Mawr
!”

Behind them, they heard a soft dragging noise. The door was slammed back against the wall, and
the statue walked in. But it didn't look like the statue they had first discovered. It was black and charred all over and part of one of its arms was missing, leaving a pointed stump. Its ivory face had been crudely nailed back into place, but it was badly burned on one side, so that it no longer looked calm and serene. It had a terrible injured snarl that made all of them step back apprehensively.

Mr Vane said, “I managed to drag him out of the flames. I burned both of my hands doing it. Look.” He gripped one of the torn sheets in his teeth and unwrapped his left hand. It was nothing but a raw, blackened mitt, with no fingers at all. He waved it under Lucy's nose and Lucy recoiled in horror.

“I saved Aedd Mawr and I shall have my just reward for that, don't you worry! While
you
– you will get your just reward for what you have done.”

Without warning, the statue reached out with its one good hand and seized Lucy by the arm. Courtney swung at it with his mallet, but the statue lashed out with its pointed stump and sent him flying back against the wall.

John tried to tug Lucy out of the statue's grip, but it was far too strong. It pulled her right up against its charred chest, with its forearm tight across her throat. Lucy gagged and kicked her legs.

Courtney got up again, and swung the mallet around and around. Mr Vane retreated behind the statue's back. “It's no good, you know. You can't hit
either of us without hitting Lucy, and if you don't put the hammer down I shall ask my friend here to break her neck.”

John said, “Leave her alone … I'm warning you. Leave her alone.”

He bent down and grabbed the pickaxe.

“And what are you going to do with that?” Mr Vane taunted him. “You're such a child you can hardly lift it.”

Courtney tried to feint around the statue, but it shuffled to one side with its arm still around Lucy's throat, and Mr Vane still hovering right behind it.

John said, “It's no good, Courtney. We're going to have to give in.”

“What? We've got rid of most of his spirit friends. How long do you think he can keep this up?”

“It's no good, Courtney. You've seen what he's like. He'll tell the statue to kill Lucy and we won't be able to stop him.”

John stepped forward and stood only half a metre away from the statue. It stared back at him with its burned, twisted face.

“I don't know what kind of spirit lives inside you,” he said, “but I'm asking you not to hurt this girl, and to let her go.”

“I want your solemn promise not to damage any more runestones,” said Mr Vane.

John nodded, and said, “All right. I promise. We all promise.”

“Good,” smiled Mr Vane. “And to make sure you keep it, I'm going to ask Aedd Mawr to strangle young Lucy right in front of your eyes. No Druid promise can ever be binding without a sacrifice.”

“
No
!” John shouted, and tried again to pull at Lucy's arm, but the statue waved his pointed stump at her and squeezed Lucy's throat so tightly that she let out a high, cackling gargle. John was frightened, but he was frustrated and enraged too. “You promised to set her free!”

“And so I shall. Free from her mortal body. Free to roam along the ley lines with the other spirits.”

“You even
bruise
her, I'll break every bone in your body!” Courtney yelled.

Mr Vane threw back his head and laughed even louder. “After all these years, after all these hundreds of sacrifices, what do you think one more life means to me?”