Ritual (8 page)

The Inspector selected another frond of parsley and articulated between chews. ‘Is occult murder healthy? Except to a pervert, Squire. Eh, Squire?’

‘Strip off Scotland Yard, Inspector! It’s becoming routine. Might almost say, ritual. Listen and learn.’

The Squire obviously enjoyed giving lectures. And today was no exception. A tatter of white sea mist shifted uneasily at the bottom of the garden. It clung to the barks of the apple trees. The temperature was certainly degrees cooler. The buttercup sun wanted to die. Hanlin could smell the sea, the shells on the beach. Slicing over and over.

The Squire knifed into his thoughts. ‘Inspector, if you lived here, which you don’t, you’d see what I mean. Here violence and hunger of beasts haunt our minds. On evenings like this...’ He indicated the waters of the sky with the sun’s honeycomb beyond. ‘Yes, on evenings like this, the beast snarls in our minds. So we grow flowers and herbs to calm the beast. We grow things, Inspector, grow ‘em! That’s why we’re rich in what we are. A hard existence. The earth’s not easy. D’you follow my sea drift?’

‘Considering I suggested occult murder, no, I don’t!’

‘More fool you, then. We grow things. We don’t kill things. That’s my point. Don’t arrange death. He is in a hurry as it is. That’s what I mean!’

‘Please, please, Squire, do not try to draw me in to your obtuse philosophy. I know guilt when I see it. I can smell it. It’s as rank as a cat on heat. There’s guilt written on every face I’ve seen in this village. Guilt! On your face, too, Squire! It’s like railway lines on your face!’

The Squire moved towards the house. Having passed his vegetable patch, he stepped on the recently dug earth, until he was looking into the face of a sunflower. He caressed the propeller-shaped petals, chrome and powdery to the fingers. With his right hand he removed a minute insect from the yellow centre of the flower. The flower’s pad was like a living cushion. It seemed to press against the pads of his fingers. He did not kill the insect but brought it for the Inspector’s inspection. It was a green fly. A delicate turmoil of spindle grass and perspex wings. The Squire held it in such a way that it was able to perform acrobatics between his fingertips.

‘We villagers are much like this greenfly, Inspector. We plunder the beauty of the earth by planting, and weeding, and sweating a lot. Fortunately, some of the beauty rubs off on our hands and faces. We’re allowed to glory in it. I mean this. And the guilt you think you see, is only fear that an outsider, like you, Inspector Hanlin, will destroy our peace of mind. Our secrets. Sounds pretentious? Many things that are facts sound pretentious. If you gave yourself up to the earth for the rest of your life—perhaps you’d find our peace. But you wouldn’t dare. Anyway, it’s too late for you. You irritate us. Go away.’

The Squire placed the greenfly on a crack in the paving stones. Suddenly a young rust-coloured soldier ant hunched his way out of the dark between the stones. He anchored his eyes on the greenfly and creaked forward to attack. His mandibles clashed silently. With a hysterical zig-zag movement he caught the greenfly with his pincers. The greenfly screamed. The Squire heard it scream. The Inspector hardly noticed the insects at all. In fact, he nearly trod on them.

The Squire squatted on his haunches, and delivered a sharp jab with the spade-edge of his hand on the Inspector’s ankle. David was taken by surprise and nearly punched his attacker until he saw the reason.

‘I’m sorry, Squire, so sorry, I didn’t see...!’

The Squire was oblivious to his apology. Quickly he removed the greenfly from the crab jaws of the ant and returned it to the sunflower.

‘I forgot. Ant owns asphalt. That’s where outsiders belong. Only green things inherit the earth, eh!’

David changed his tune.

‘Where were you at the time of Dian Spark’s death, Squire?’

‘On my way to church, Inspector. Religion has its place. All religions.’

The Squire grinned at the Inspector, then turned back to the herb patch and gathered a bunch of garlic flowers.

‘All religions, Squire? Does that include witchcraft? Satanism? Satanic rites? Ritual? Well, come on, answer me!’

‘Did you say something, Inspector?’

‘I’d have you inside if I could! Evading the law!’

‘But you can’t.’

The Squire stroked the bunch of flowers in his hand. David tried a different tack.

‘I imagine it hurt you, Squire, when Lawrence Cready bought your Manor. He has you under his thumb, hasn’t he? You’re frightened of him. Why?’

For the first time the Squire was disturbed. Only fractionally, but disturbed. Nevertheless, he clamped a negative visor over his face.

‘Why, Squire? All right. I’ll find out. If not from you—from the others. I have my own ways of making people talk. And until someone does talk, I will haunt this village. All your experiments, musical and otherwise, will blow up in your faces. I’m ruthless if I have to be. And I don’t like it.’ The Squire handed the Inspector the flowers.

‘Take these to Anna, Inspector. She likes garlic flowers. Didn’t bring you home for nothing, you know. Naughty big girl! Has a very healthy appetite—for flowers—and things.’

The Inspector realised, short of a warrant or violence, the interview was over.

The Squire took out his flute and let a soft scream curve through the late afternoon. David had come to another precipice. And the ant hunched into the dark.

8

Although the final blood of sunset is two hours in the future, already the sky is a glass of honey. A fringe of cloud haunts the skyline of the sea. And the sea is searching out the secrets of the shells on the wet beaches. Seaweed, the clutch of the crab, and the starfish wait for the next wave. With foaming claws, wave crashes on wave. Hear the shingle sing as the wave sucks and plucks, in his salt armour, plucks and sucks the shingles back. The green gauntlets are greedy for stones. They thrust starfish and seaweed home into the starving sea. This happens minute by minute from now until the end.

A seagull with oil on his fingers, skids a wedding spray in the foam. Then he furrows his left wing between the breasts of two waves and coils for the land. He beats the salt air and in moments achieves the giant oak tree, circles two and a half times, and returns to the sea.

The tree burns cool alizarin like a leafy candelabra in the evening sky. Its upper flat leaves are rusty with stale salt. Other than the rooks and the night owls, no birds ever cling to its boughs. Perhaps it’s the salt or perhaps... well, its shadow stretches to the roots of the woods. It is grave cold under the shadow. An aroma of decayed mushrooms and the sting of last year’s icicles creeps from the shadow. It’s always like this when the night is excited, and in summer the night is always excited, so it’s always like this.

It was seven o’clock. Half past. The children followed Anna round the base of the great oak. She was explaining to them how bark was used by Indians to make war canoes. And also how, when burnt on certain nights of the year, it gave great power.

‘I don’t get you, Miss Spark,’ blurted out Fat Billy, ‘I can see the canoe bit but what the hell’s burning and power got to do with each other?’

‘Billy, listen, and don’t forget! Fire is the symbol of power. Like you have power over the Gang, fire has power over you. God is in fire. Not the Christ God! But the Dark God! How many times do I have to tell you tomorrow night we celebrate God! We will dance to give us power over corn and over ourselves! This tree is magical!’

Billy’s eyes widened to minor saucers. Gilly was frightened. Fear was the order of the week.

‘Blood has been spilt, children, acres of blood that you may benefit. Our God believes in blood.’

The children’s faces burnt in the late sun as excitement quivered along their limbs. Her words rang in their brains like Arctic wind on Venetian goblets.

‘Your God, my God, our God, is freedom! Complete freedom! To do anything! Run faster than wind! Play till stars are tired! In this tree, the blood is sleeping, waiting for you to revive it. It will give you strength to grow. To be the best! And one day you will take the world by the throat and wring it until winter is dead and summer lasts forever! So touch the oak! Touch it! Grow!’

Fever drowsed their eyes as all the children thrust their urgent fingers into the cracks of the bark. Only Gilly did not move. The children were sure they felt the blood and sap rising from the roots, felt the green branches thrusting power into their sticky fingers. The blood and the sap spiralled in their blood streams and hit their brains like coarse brandy.

Only Gilly recoiled from the oak. She forced the iron filings in her to resist its magnetic field. She remembered over again her friend, dead amongst the cold roots of this tree. The oak’s shadow oppressed her. She felt a scream searching for her vocal chords. Whilst the other children slowly pressed their chests, thighs, and then centres to the bark, she edged towards the sunset.

A scimitar of sun carved her neck. And then a cold hand out of the colder shadow clenched her shoulder. Gilly was cut in half by the shadow and the sun. The sun called to her with buttercups. But the darkness won. Anna pulled Gilly back into the shadow. Gilly was very frightened.

‘Listen to me, Gilly, you must touch this tree. It’s the only way you’ll ever be able to forget what happened to my sister! Don’t you understand? It’s like nearly drowning! I have to push you back into the water, otherwise you will never be able to swim again!’

‘I want to go home, Miss Anna! Please let me go home! I’m scared!’

Anna simply took the girl by her shoulders and pulled her to the tree.

‘Touch it! Touch it!’

‘I can’t! I can’t!’

‘You will! You will!’

‘Please no! Please...!’

The other children were so engrossed in wrapping themselves round the tree, they were oblivious to their friend. ‘No! I can’t! I won’t!’

Ruthlessly, Anna forced Gilly face forwards against the tree. Gilly pummelled her little fists on the icy bark. In the process she skinned the knuckles of her left hand. The blood pulsed for a second before leaking out. She had given in. Her body pressed the mildewed bark. Slimey moss stuck to her forehead, forearms, and her knees. She could smell the damp crawling into her nostrils as her blood dribbled into the cracks of the bark.

Anna watched the blood. Her face was transformed to a hunger. She was nothing but sea eyes and pin teeth. She ached for Midsummer. She ached for the sensuality. She had devoted her life to the potential of extremes. Anything that promised glandular excitement—from food to sex—with all that exists between—she experimented in. She worshipped her body. And treated it as though it had nothing to do with her. As if it were a valuable field, where you could grow corn, or turn into a slaughter house, or build a temple or a brothel.

At Bristol University, she had already achieved a reputation as a sex scientist. In her first year she had gone through the men like an enema. Now they considered her to be a whore. She agreed she was. Except she never took money. Perhaps later she would experiment with money. But at the moment she was a hot-house plant and loved it. She realised that she would soon run out of Perfumed Garden exploits. God would be a good experiment to work on next. The Christ God, of course. Her God was here. Her God was different. He was black ice and summer fever. Sulphuric acid could never gnaw him, but he was easy to placate. A little blood and a lot of frenzy and the odd child’s innocence and he was satisfied for the week. In any case, baby evil is more beautiful than grown-up good.

Quickly she pulled the children one by one from their fever in the tree’s arms. They had no wish to leave their icy lover. Time no longer was! Trance was reality. And the sun was setting. The final shadows were moving rapidly in thick dark clots over the summer landscape. The sea was seething.

One, two, three minutes and the sun is lusting for the sea. Squirting his liquid amber, he hears the submarine call of the mermen and the Kraken. The upper air vibrates like a sheet of crystal as the sun lunges into the water. One long hiss of pain and the water devours the fire. There is only the perfection of the darkness.

Anna forced the children to watch the epilogue of the dusk. The gnats began to bite. And the bats began to squeal.

‘Hold hands, children, hold hands and walk against the clock round the oak tree. Walk and be glad!’

And the children obeyed her and began the circle in their walking dance. Then imperceptibly weird sounds came from their mouths. High vowels, but softly, softly into the growing dark. Anna whispered into the branches. ‘Widdershins. Widdershins. Against the sun we walk. Against the sun.’

She and the children moved in a trance and the trance was possessing them. The first stars would not come.

*

Twilight. Dusk. Night.

On the village end of the wood, two policemen patrolled the asphalt, bordering the trees. They exchanged irrelevant snags of conversation. The wood made them nervous. When night rams her shutter over the sun, the wood begins to talk with tree voices. The wood invites, offers dark hospitality. The policemen were drawn towards the trees but refused to leave their set course. The only way they would ever go into that wood at night was dead.

The Sergeant clamped his fear under his moustache. He fiddled with his silver whistle, praying the night would get on with it. Then without warning, a white circle of torchlight hit his eyes. He couldn’t see anything so he shouted the standard, ‘Hey, what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’

The torch continued to blind him, as a black card was thrust under his nose.

‘Oh, we heard you were here, Inspector Hanlin... you didn’t half give me a shake-up.’

‘That was the purpose of my visit, Sergeant,’ replied the Inspector. ‘Now, my fine men, have you seen Anna Spark go into this wood—or any of the village gang—or both?’

‘Oh, no, sir! We would have stopped them. This wood is definitely unhygienic at night. It sort of needs sterilising. And, well, it’s best to keep your nose clean—shut the odd eye—keep the nose clean!’

The policeman blanched under his superior’s scrutiny. As it was dark, the Inspector no longer wore his sunglasses.

‘What do you mean by keep your nose clean?’ As he said this, the Inspector shone his torch up the Sergeant’s hairy nostrils. ‘Looks bogey enough to me! And your eyesight’s not so hot I think! So what do you mean?’

The other policeman rescued his sergeant. ‘If you’ll forgive us, sir, it’s ten o’clock and we have to check the Bank, etc. If you need any assistance, please call us, sir.’

‘All right! All right!’

The Inspector waved them on their way. Gratefully they clumped towards the village.

I don’t get this. I don’t get this at all. Gilly is still out. I went to see her parents and they didn’t seem in the least bothered about their eight year old daughter being out after sundown. And where’s Anna? She whispered something to those kids earlier. Well, Hanlin, follow your instinct. These woods are pulling me under their branches. They’re talking. I must be overtired or something. This village is strange. The sun’s claustrophobic. Even the Church feels corrupt. And I’m getting nowhere, slowly. What the hell’s that?

The Inspector recoiled into himself as a pheasant barked over his head. Then an owl started hooting. Using his torch like a white fan, he hunted over the wood towards the corn-fields. All the night eaters were out now. Look there! No, no, to the left, there! Those flaps of leather! The flying mice!

David moved into the wood. Occasionally he licked the trees with his white torch beam. Everything outside the freezing light was pond-black, whispering to purple. Suddenly a clan of bats seemed to attack him. Deliberately. They flapped their slimy wings towards his eyes. He ducked and beat them off with the heavy end of his torch. When he had damaged two of them, they zig-zagged past his face and squeaked into the black.

With the assistance of his compass, David now moved quickly. The bats were like child vampires, as yet toothless, but brought up in the hungry tradition. He felt the very weight of the dark. It had physical density and dragged his eyebrows. Fear bubbled out of the damp grass under his feet. Any man who does not experience his hair trying to walk from the top of his head in a wood or a graveyard at night, is suffering from a supreme lack of imagination.

I should have rung my Super. He hates me playing my hunches. He promised me real bother this time if anything went wrong. He said there wouldn’t he another. Told me to work by the book. But how can I? When you enter a new country, the old laws are obsolete. And this village is the nearest physical manifestation of fantasy I’ve ever come across. It has created a new set of rules out of anarchy. And they’re not in my police manual. Of course, what’s worrying me most is that I’m running out of questions.

God could almost exist here—if he wasn’t dead. And a God does exist here. A power out of the dark and out of the roar of the sun. Yes, yes, and fear’s gripping my hair. I’ve got clammy hands in my bowels. My God, I’m getting bloody morbid!

He was running now and his thought patterns were confused. He scraped them into order. He pulled out the photograph of himself and the little girl that he’d been crying over in the morning train, and shone his torch on it.

You were murdered, weren’t you, Jenny? Your poor Mum and Dad lost the apple of their eye. You used to live next door to me. Until you were found one afternoon last August, pinned by a carving knife to the kitchen table. If I find the murderer of little Dian, it will help you sleep better. I’ll tear him limb from limb if I find him!

And the Inspector ran faster.

*

The children moved round the tree. And then, and then, on the curve of their hearing, beyond the swill of the sea, they heard a flute note, so high, it hurt their ears.

The Squire’s pipe flowered over the fields and the woods and gathered to a fever in the oak leaves. In his garden, with the torn fragrance of roses, honeysuckle, and all the night excesses of Midsummer, the Squire conjured with his flute. The white horse, now a tear-stained grey in the evening, whinnied his fear. And the Squire felt as if he were playing on a slender branch of the oak tree. He sensed the children were dancing to his pipe, rehearsing for the dance of Midsummer.

Faster and faster and faster, deeper and deeper and deeper, the children’s feet beat into the turf. The night grass seemed to grow in their legs. Branches sprouted sharp leaves through their arms to their fingertips. Their mouths were filled with bark. Everything was dancing. Noises snarled through their teeth. Fantasy was coming. Reality was grit on the asphalt. And the asphalt had gone.

David rushed towards the dancers, who suddenly broke away from the tree like singed moths when the candle’s dead. They recovered quickly. Susan headed for the woods, followed by the twins. Billy fumbled towards the sea and Anna seemed to disappear!