The Pariah (33 page)

THIRTY

I had, however, misjudged Gilly. I was back at Quaker Lane Cottage, packing together a few shirts and sweaters in preparation for my move to old man Evelith’s place, when the telephone rang. ‘John? It’s Gilly.’

‘Gilly? I thought you were ignoring me, just like the rest of the Peabody archeological club.’

She laughed. ‘I didn’t want to upset them. Come on, John, I’ve been log-keeping for them for months now, they depend on me. But I think Edward’s being very stuffy about this copper vessel you’re supposed to bring up from the hold. I mean, if it
really
has anything to do with all these hauntings, then I think they should winch it up straight away.’

‘You and me both,’ I told her. ‘But you heard what Edward’s reaction to
that
was. And he was the guy who said he would always be my friend. I think I’d rather have Mictantecutli for a friend. At least with Mictantecutli, you know where you are.’

‘Did Edward really promise you that he would bring up the copper vessel especially quickly?’

‘He implied as much. As soon as humanly possible, that’s what he said. I knew it couldn’t be raised in two minutes flat, even when the wreck was located. But there was never any suggestion of
years.
It’s too urgent for years. One way or another, that demon has to be brought up out of there, and quick.’

Gilly was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘You’re going over to Tewksbury tonight, aren’t you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well , if you can wait until nine or ten o’clock, I’ll come over and see you. But I have to finish stock-taking first.’

‘Nine or ten o’clock is fine. Make it as late as you like.’

I finished packing: then I took a look around the cottage. The bedrooms were empty and silent; and there was a strange
closed
atmosphere about them, as if they knew that I was leaving. I walked along the upstairs corridor to the bathroom, and collected my toothbrush, and stood for a moment and examined myself in the mirror over the basin. I looked very tired. There were purple smudges under my eyes, and my face looked oddly foxy, as if the decision I had made to free Mictantecutli had somehow affected me physically, like the portrait of Dorian Gray had been altered by the corrupt and profligate life he had led.

I took my suitcase and went downstairs. I made sure that the water was turned off, and the icebox left to defrost with the door open. Then I went into the sitting-room and checked that I hadn’t left anything behind. I was even going to take the painting of the
David Dark
with me, in case there was anything in it which old man Evelith might have overlooked before he sold it.

I still wanted to go to stay with Duglass Evelith at Tewksbury, even though I had resigned from Edward’s diving team. In fact, it was more critical than ever before that I should learn as much as I could about Mictantecutli and the
David Dark,
because I was now determined that if Edward was going to refuse to bring up the copper vessel, then I would have to bring it up myself. Regardless of my inexperience as a diver; and regardless of the laws of salvage and wrecks.

I made sure that the log fire was out, and then I switched off the sitting-room light, and prepared to leave. But I was just about to close the door when I heard that whispering again, that soft, obscene whispering. I hesitated, listening. Then I stared into the darkness of the sitting-room, trying to make out if there was anything or anybody there.

The whispering went on: coaxing and lubricious, the whispering of a pederast or a voyeur, the whispering of a sexual killer. I looked towards the fireplace, and I was sure that I could see two dim scarlet glows amongst the logs, like the eyes of a devil.

I hesitated, then I switched on the light. There was nobody there. The fire was dead and cold; without cinders or sparks. I glanced around the room quickly, then I turned off the light again and closed the door. I knew then that as long as the cottage was haunted this way, I could never go back. There was too much evil here, too much cold commotion. I may not have been at any physical risk, but if I stayed here much longer I would very likely go mad.

I went through the hallway and picked up my suitcase. As I did so, a familiar voice said,

‘John.’

 I turned around. Jane was standing at the top of the stairs, her bare feet floating just a few inches above the second tread. She was still dressed in her white funeral robes, which silently fluttered as if they were being blown by an updraught. She was smiling at me, but there was something about her face which was even more skeletal than ever.

I turned away. I was determined not to look, not to listen. But Jane whispered,
‘Don’t
forget me, John. Whatever you do, don’t forget me.’

 For a moment or two, I stood where I was, wondering whether I ought to speak to her: whether I ought to encourage her, or reassure her that I was going to save her, or whether I ought to tell her to go back to hell. But it probably wasn’t her at all. It was probably nothing more than another of Mictantecutli’s evil apparitions; and there was no point in speaking to that.

 I went out, closed the door behind me, and locked it. Then I walked away from Quaker Lane Cottage with as much determination as I could; promising myself that I wouldn’t go back there until Mictantecutli had been raised from the harbour, and fulfilled for me
its
side of-the bargain we had made.

But I couldn’t resist one last look at the blind and shuttered face of the house that had once been our home, Jane’s and mine. It looked so derelict and abandoned, as if the malevolence that now infested it had begun to rot the very structure of the roof-beams, the very substance of the plaster and the brick. I turned on the car engine, engaged drive, and drove off down Quaker Lane, my wheels bouncing in the pot-holes and ruts.

I was only halfway down the lane when I saw Keith Reed, beating at the bushes along the left-hand side of the lane with a walking-cane. I drew up beside him, and put down my window.

‘Keith? How are you doing?’

Keith glanced at me, and carried on thrashing at the bushes. ‘I thought you wasn’t speaking to me,’ he said, crossly.

‘I forgave you,’ I told him. ‘Did you lose something?’

‘Lose something? Haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what? I’ve been in and out of Granitehead like a monkey on a stick.’

Keith came over to the car, and leaned on the roof. He looked as tired and as anxious as I did, and his nose was running. I passed him a Kleenex from the glove-box, and he noisily blew. Then he said, ‘We lost George.’

‘You lost George? What do you mean, you lost George?’

‘Just that. We lost him. He went out yesterday afternoon; said he was off to see his brother Wilf. Well, that’s crazy, of course, because Wilf is dead. But we ain’t seen George since then, and everybody’s out searching for him.’

I sat behind the wheel of my car, and thoughtfully bit my lip. So Mictantecutli had claimed George Markham as well. I knew it. And although I wasn’t going to tell Keith as much, because I didn’t want to discourage him from searching, I knew in my heart of hearts that George was already dead, in the same way that Mrs Edgar Simons was dead, and Charlie Manzi, too.

‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ I said. ‘I’m going over to Tewksbury for a while, but I’ll be back.’

‘Okay,’ said Keith; and as I drove away he went back across to the hedgerow, and carried on beating at the branches in his attempt to find his old stud-poker partner, dead or alive. I felt deeply depressed as I reached the highway, and turned south on to West Shore Drive. The power of the demon was hanging over Granitehead like an Atlantic thunderstorm; dark and threatening, a power so great that it could make the dead come to life and the sky turn black.

It was dark by the time I reached Tewksbury, and drew up outside the wrought-iron gates of old man Evelith’s house. I rang the bell and waited for Quamus to open up for me, watched as before by the ever-attentive Doberman Pinscher. If I’ve ever seen a dog with a relish for human flesh, that dog was it. I could hear its claws clicking on the shingle driveway in carnivorous impatience.

As it was, it was Enid Lynch who called the dog off and came to open the gates for me.

She was wearing an ankle-length satin dressing-gown in electric blue, with a white boa col ar. Her hair was pinned back and fastened with diamante combs. She looked like Jean Harlow in
Dinner At Eight.
The only trouble was, I didn’t feel very much like Wallace Beery.

‘You decided to take Mr Evelith up on his offer?’ she said, lifting one of her thinly-plucked eyebrows, and locking the gates behind me.

‘Are you surprised?’

‘I’m not sure. I would have thought you were the kind of man who would have preferred to stay at a Howard Johnson’s.’

I followed her up the steps to the front door. ‘I’m not sure whether I ought to take that as a compliment or not.’

She showed me upstairs to my suite of rooms. There was a large drawing-room, furnished with comfortable but stuffy old sofas and chairs, and carpeted in dark brown.

On the walls were oil paintings of the Dracut County forests and the Miskatonic River; and next to the fireplace there were shelves packed with leather-bound books on geology and physics. There was a decent-sized bedroom, with a brass bed, and a huge gilt-framed mirror on the wal ; and next to the bedroom there was an old-fashioned bathroom, with a shower that had obviously been dripping steadily for years, judging by the green stain on the tiles.

‘I will tell Mr Evelith that you have arrived when he has finished his afternoon sleep.’

‘It’s evening already. Does he usually sleep this long?’

‘It depends on his dreams. Sometimes he will fall asleep during the afternoon, and not wake up until early the following morning. He says he does as much work in dreams as he does when he is awake.’

‘I see,’ I said, setting down my suitcase.

Enid said, ‘You may call me if there is anything that you need.’

‘I’m fine for the moment. There’s just one thing, though: a friend of mine is visiting me later this evening. Miss Gilly McCormick. I hope that’s going to be all right.’

‘Perfectly. Quamus will let her in.’

‘Quamus isn’t here right now?’

Enid stared at me oddly, as if the question wasn’t even worth a reply. I snapped open the latches of my case, and tried to look as if I was engrossed in taking out my slippers.

Enid said, ‘We usually eat at nine o’clock. You like beef?’

‘Certainly. That’ll be marvellous.’

‘Good. In the meantime, please make yourself at home. Mr Evelith said you were to have free access to the library.’

‘Thank you. I’ll, uh … see you later.’

I unpacked my shirts and my underwear and put them away in the deep sour-smelling drawers of the bureau in my bedroom. Then I wandered around my rooms, picking up books and statuettes, and peering out of the windows. My drawing-room had a view of the back garden, which was almost a forest in itself. It was too dark to see it properly, but I could make out the distant shapes of hundred-foot pines, and, closer to the house, a huge Osage orange. There was no television in the room, and I made a mental note to myself to bring in a portable set tomorrow.

Just as the clock on my mantelpiece chimed eight-thirty, ‘ and I was sitting with my feet up on one of the sofas trying to get myself engrossed in
Stresses In The Mohorovicic
Discontinuity,
my door opened and old man Evelith walked in. He was fully dressed for dinner in a tuxedo and black tie, and his thinning gray hair was combed back with what smelled like lavender oil. He came up to me, and shook my hand, and then sat down next to me, smiling rather distantly, and turned over the cover of my book with his long chalk-nailed finger, to see what it was I was reading. ‘Mmh,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything at all about Moho?’

‘Moho?’

‘Geological slang. If you
did
know anything about Moho, you’d know what it was. Still, I suppose we all have to start pur studies somewhere. You could have picked a better place. That book
Understanding Geology
is probably more up your street.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll … dip into it.’

Duglass Evelith looked at me fixedly. Then he said, ‘I wasn’t sure that you would come.

Well, not
entirely
sure. I told Enid that it would depend on how violently your dead wife has been haunting you.’

‘Why should it have depended on that?’

‘Let me put it this way,’ said Duglass Evelith. ‘You’re not involved in this search for the
David Dark
for archaeological motives; neither are you involved in it for profit. You have been haunted by your dead wife, as many people in Granitehead have been haunted before you; and you want to get to the cause of that haunting, and root it out.’

‘That’s right,’ I nodded. ‘My sole interest in the
David Dark
begins and ends with Mictantecutli.’

Duglass Evelith took off his half-glasses and folded them up, tucking them into the breast pocket of his tuxedo. ‘Because of that, Mr Trenton, you and I have an interest in common. Oh, of course I’m fascinated by the archaeological possibilities of the
David
Dark.
It’s going to be one of the most important finds in American maritime history. But the copper vessel that lies within its hold is a hundred times more important to me than the rotten wood which surrounds it. It is Mictantecutli that I want.’

‘Any special reason?’ I asked him. I knew it could be an impertinent question, but if our interests in the raising of the
David Dark
were so closely aligned, then I believed that it was important for me to know why he wanted to lay his hands on Mictantecutli. It might also give me some idea of what Evelith intended to do with the demon once he’d gotten hold of it, and how I could possibly set it free.

‘The reason is simple to explain but difficult to believe,’ said old man Evelith. ‘During the Salem witch-trials, it was my ancestor Joseph Evelith who was among the most fervent of all the jurors; and it was he who alone believed that the witches were truly possessed, even after the hysteria was over, and the
David Dark
had been sent away from Salem and sunk. After the trials, Joseph attempted in vain to have all the remaining suspects executed, pleading with everybody in Salem that the witch-trials had
not
been a mistake; that in fact they had helped to purge Salem of a terrible evil, and to save the souls who had been hung of a fate far worse than the gallows. The only person who really believed him, of course, was Esau Hasket, and Hasket tried to help him leave Massachusetts to escape the anger of those who had once been his friends and co-prosecutors. But a party of burghers caught him as he was leaving Salem on the Swampscott Road, dressed as a woman, and he was imprisoned. His fate was to be secret and terrible. He was to be taken to the forest and there given as a sacrifice to the Naumkeag Indians, who for some years had been suffering poor harvests and blighted crops. A Naumkeag wonder-worker gave Joseph Evelith to the Spirit of the Future, a servant of Mictantecutli who in Aztec society was called Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror. My ancestor did not “die” at the hands of Tezcatlipoca, in the accepted sense of the word. He became its slave for all eternity, suffering agonies of humiliation and torture. Tezcatlipoca is thoroughly evil: it wears a snake’s-head dangling from one nostril, so the Aztecs say, and its conjuring wand is the amputated arm of a woman who died in childbirth.’