The Beast of Seabourne (49 page)

“But it was us or them,” Oz protested. “They knew about McClelland. They'd nicked his files from the Mountain Rescue headquarters. It was only a matter of time before Gerber sent his men to search the mountain.”

Caleb scowled. “Go on,” he said, his face very serious.

Oz recounted the Beast's attack in the ossuary cave, and once again felt a horrible, simmering guilt at the memory of Niko's aunt thanking him for saving her nephew. But he quashed it and went on to tell of how Skelton was waiting for them on the mountaintop with a gun. As he described what Skelton had said to them, Caleb's face darkened beneath his tan. Nevertheless, when he finally got to the end and their arrival back at the camp, despite the horror of reliving it, Oz felt lighter, as if a heavy stone had been lifted from around his neck.

“When I got your text half an hour ago, I made some calls,” Caleb said, with still no trace of a smile on his face. “It'll be on the news tomorrow morning that Skelton has gone missing from the hospital. The police are putting a spin on it, saying he's lost his memory and for people to be on the lookout for him, but my guess is he's been removed by Gerber's people.”

“Do you think he's spoken to the police?” Oz asked.

“About what really happened?” Caleb let out a derisory chortle. “No. He was badly injured. Broken limbs and a smashed face. Gerber knows. You won't have said anything either. This way, no one will be any the wiser.”

There was a long, dragging silence before Caleb pierced Oz with an accusatory stare.

“You could have been killed,” he said thickly.

“I know,” Oz said.

Caleb appeared to slump in on himself. “And it would have been all my fault.”

“How would it have been your fault?”

“Because I've known about Hamish for years.I should have gone to look for him myself.”

Oz let out a hollow little laugh. “But that's stupid. You would never have found that place in a million years of looking.”

“I should have tried.” Caleb had both hands on the desk now, clenched so tightly the knuckles stood out white against the tanned skin. “Instead, I just sat back and hoped no one would work it out. Knowing that the ring was hidden…”

“It doesn't matter now, though, does it?” Oz held out his right hand. On the middle finger was the black ceramic ring. Caleb looked at it but did not touch it.

“People have died because of this,” he said, his face suddenly bitter.

“All the more reason that you tell us the truth from now on, then,” Oz said.

Caleb bowed his head and muttered, “I've already told you. I am not worthy.”

Oz took off the ring and pushed it into Caleb's palm. The historian stared at it for a long, contemplative moment, but didn't touch it with his fingers.

“When Niko's aunty came to thank me in the hall today, I felt sick,” Oz said, breaking the silence.

Caleb looked up and waited for Oz to continue.

“There I was, being thanked for rescuing Niko, when it was my fault that Gerber and Heeps has chosen him in the first place. Just because he was in my class. Just because he was my friend,” Oz said, his voice rising with challenge. “So, don't tell me that all this is your fault, because that just isn't true.”

“You didn't choose this path, Oz,” Caleb said, and there was something of the old Caleb in the way he spoke now, a little more of the calm wisdom that Oz needed. “It's a hard and solitary and difficult one, filled with terrifying obstacles. But the truth is that it is the only path to follow.” He pushed his open palm forward. Oz took back the ring and slipped it onto his middle finger before taking a deep breath and asking, “Do you know what the Bane is?”

“No,” Caleb said.

“It's what Skelton said Gerber was planning.”

“What did he mean?”

Oz thought about Soph, and instantly she was there in the room. Her flawless face looked calmly at Oz and Caleb before she tilted her head and answered Oz's unspoken question.

“Bane. From the old English
bana
, meaning ‘slayer,' and the Old Norse
bani
, meaning ‘death.' Current usage, a person or thing that ruins or spoils; a deadly poison; death or destruction.”

“Thanks, Soph,” Oz said softly.

Caleb stared at her, his mouth turning down. Eventually, he said, “There have been rumours. What drives Gerber is a festering seed of bitterness. He rails against the world, wants to change it. With his artefact, he has the tools. We have people who know a small part of what he has planned.” He paused, looking up into Oz's face. “You've done the Black Death in history?”

Oz nodded.

Caleb continued in his deep, unwavering voice. “A plague that killed millions. Imagine finding a cure for it. They'd make you a saint. That's what Gerber wants, to tear the world apart so that he can change it to suit his own purpose. Except the big joke is that he, as well as curing the disease, will have invented it, too.”

“You mean the Bane's a virus?”

“No, that's too obvious. This will be something very different.”

Oz didn't understand all of what Caleb was saying to him, but he understood enough to know the Bane did not sound like good news. He steadied himself for what he had to say next. “There's something else. When Skelton was pointing the gun at me, he said something about my dad. He said that they'd tried to get information from him but that he didn't know anything…” Oz tried to swallow, but his mouth was a desert. “He said my dad was expendable. He said that the whiskey bottle on the seat had been a ‘nice touch'…”

Caleb's face filled with a dull repugnance. “Oz, Skelton is nothing better than a paid thug.”

But Oz only half-heard him. “It's funny, because I should have been upset, but hearing Skelton say those things just confirmed what I already sort of knew.” Oz's voice was now nothing but a strained whisper. “Gerber killed Morsman, didn't he?”

Caleb nodded. “For years, Gerber had been searching, looking for the pieces of the jigsaw that fit together to give him the answers he so desperately seeks. Why, for example, did the artefacts choose Bunthorpe of all places? Morsman was close to finding out, but in the end, he didn't really know, though I expect Gerber ripped out every drop of knowledge from him.”

“And my dad?”

Caleb couldn't return Oz's fierce gaze.

Oz wouldn't let it lie. “He did it, didn't he? He did it and tried to make it look like Dad did it himself because—”

“That's the sort of twisted monster he is,” Caleb interjected. “He doesn't care how much pain he causes by doing the things he does. I know what it sounds like, but I'll say it anyway. That's what evil is, Oz.”

Anger burst in a shower of red sparks behind Oz's eyes. He pushed himself away from the desk jerkily. The sheer injustice of it suddenly made him feel like his head might explode. All those years of having to endure the tainted pity in people's eyes while his father's killers had been free to operate unchallenged. It was so unfair.

“Oz, listen to me,” Caleb said.

Oz threw him a wild glance, his breath churning in his throat. He could hardly hear the words as his imagination ran riot in his head. How had they done it? Had they drugged him? Had they threatened to come after his wife and child? Then he felt Caleb's tight grip on his arm and heard more words. “Listen. To. Me.”

Oz's focus came back, and he blinked rapidly.

“There is no proof,” Caleb said. “This is just one twisted maniac's taunting. You have to control yourself, Oz. The authorities…”

“Still believe that my dad committed suicide,” Oz blurted through gritted teeth, the words like nettles in his ears.

Caleb nodded calmly. “And we know that he didn't. But without concrete evidence, what chance do you have of convincing anyone that murder was involved? Think of what even suggesting that would do to your mother.”

The pulsing anger died like a doused campfire inside Oz. Caleb was right. Telling his mother all this would only make everything a hundred times worse. Reluctantly, Oz nodded, and found some moisture in his mouth with which to swallow.

Caleb broke the wordless stalemate that followed. “Ellie and Ruff, are they both okay?”

“Yeah, they're okay,” Oz said, relieved at being able to talk about something else. “Ruff worked out the reference points for the cave, and Ellie trapped Niko. I couldn't have done any of it without them.”

Caleb nodded, and a ghost of a smile at last played about his lips before he leaned in once again with another warning.

“Oz, you must see what sort of men Gerber and his lot are…”

“Yeah, I do. But how many more Nikos and Richard Worthys are there going to be if we don't stop him?”

A spasm of anguish crossed Caleb's face.

Oz shook his head. “I hate them,” he muttered.

Caleb's troubled eyes suddenly sharpened. “Have you ever wondered what the world would have been like if the artefacts had not appeared, Oz?”

“Not really,” Oz said.

“I have a mathematician friend who is an expert in chaos theory.”

“What does that mean?”

“Chaos. We use it to mean a condition of disorder and confusion, but in theoretical mathematics, it's all to do with how small differences are important. For example, it's possible to show, mathematically, that the presence of a devastating hurricane in one part of the world might theoretically have been the result of a butterfly flapping its wings five thousand miles away.”

Oz looked at him. “That doesn't sound right.”

“No, it doesn't. It's extreme, but it is mathematically provable. What I'm saying is that tiny events at any given point in time can cause huge differences later. If the artefacts hadn't been found, if Shoesmith had destroyed the shell, if Soph had burned in the Bunthorpe barn fire, things would be very different now. We can't imagine the difference. Maybe there'd be flying cars. Maybe the Japanese would even have landed a man on the moon by now—”

“But you could say that about almost anything,” Oz protested.

“You could, but the artefacts weren't just anything. They clearly don't belong here. They're from elsewhere. Their appearance was a singular event, without any previous history. Just imagine—”

“But what's the point? No one's landed on the moon, have they? That's just science fiction,” Oz said. He was confused and irritated by Caleb's ramblings. What was he trying to say?

Caleb nodded. “You're right. I'm sorry. It's just a fascination of mine. Obex considered the artefacts a gift from the gods. I was not allowed to question the possibility that they aren't.”

“But Soph is here and she's real, and so are Gerber and Heeps.”

Caleb nodded again. “And the one thing they can't control is you and your link to the artefacts. Like it or not, Oz, you're the butterfly that ripples the wind.”

Oz shook his head.

“I know how hard this must be for you.” Caleb's dark eyes glittered. “I know the awful things that Gerber does. But they don't know what to do about you, Oz. Just like your dad before you, you're a ten-inch-long thorn in their side.”

“But how do we beat them?” Oz asked, searching the historian's face.

It was several seconds before Caleb replied. Twice he made as if to answer, and twice he thought better of it. When he did speak, there was honesty but little comfort in his words.

“I don't know,” was all he managed to say, and he dropped his gaze to seek refuge in his fidgeting hands. “I just don't know.”

Chapter 24

The Insect And The Cuckoo

Oz left a pensive Caleb in the library and made his way to the kitchen, composing himself as he descended the staircase. Mrs Chambers looked up from ladling out penne and Bolognese sauce as he entered.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Oz lied, and kept his gaze away from his mother's. He sat at the table and watched her surreptitiously. In the bright light of the kitchen, the dark smudges under her eyes were more obvious, and he felt his concern of earlier return.

“Everything all right, Mum?”

“Now that you're back safely, yes, it is,” she said with a brave attempt at reassurance. But Oz was too well-practised at reading his mother to let it go.

“You look a bit…stressed,” he persisted.

“Do I?” Mrs Chambers said. “The builders rang to say that they don't know when they can come, because two of them are on holiday. But there's water still coming in around the chimney breast in the front room.” She spoke in an overly bright manner dripping with sarcasm. “They suggested we put some polythene on the rugs. So that's all right, then, isn't it?”

“But the scaffolding's been up for ages.”

Mrs Chambers shrugged. The builders had been giving them the runaround for weeks, so it came as no surprise to hear this new excuse. Oz remained unconvinced. Tardy builders were a pain, but they didn't cause sleepless nights. He looked across at the calendar on the fridge. Was that the tiniest tip of a black dog's ear he could see behind it?

“Otherwise,” said Mrs Chambers, unconvincingly, “things are about the same as…”

She got no further.

“Cooee. It's only me.”

The voice came to them from the hallway, and a moment later, Rowena Hilditch breezed in, red-streaked hair flowing, green eye makeup freshly applied, today's get-up a high-necked blouse covered in straps and lace. “Let myself in with the key under that broken vase.” Her eyes registered Oz's presence, and her face crumpled in a sympathetic pout. “Oh, poor you. Your mother told me about what happened. It sounds as if your trip was a nightmare. Are you okay?”

Oz looked from Rowena to his mother. Mrs Chambers did not return his questioning look.

“I'm fine, but—” Oz began in a terse voice, still looking at his mother.