Beneath the Tor (11 page)

“Okay, Esme. I'm sorry we walked in on you. I had no idea you were all rowing in there. Maybe you don't know, but Wolfs was worried that Stefan might have been trying to sell drugs to the workshoppers.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Stefan isn't a pusher. Or a handler of any kind.”

“I'm sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't know why that row blew up.” I paused. “But you do. You were there. What
was
it about?”

Esme had a pale complexion, as if she avoided the sun wherever possible. Her cheeks turned rosy now, and she couldn't hold my gaze. “If you must know, Wolfsbane said something unforgivable.”

“What about?” I shook away my instinctive response and managed to stay polite. “I'm sorry, Esme. I can't imagine Wolfs insulting anyone.”

“Why are you sorry?” Esme adjusted the yellow scarf encircling her head. “It has nothing to do with you.”

I drove away from Stonedown Farm with a lot to think about. I wasn't sure whether to believe Esme's version of events, because the Wolfsbane I knew would never make an insulting comment about any person. I was wondering if they'd started out calmly discussing legal highs or price hikes, and, as things got heated, the insults had started flying. Esme would certainly want her two-penny's worth. Perhaps Wolfs had said something in the heat of the moment, something like
keep your bitchy nose out of this …
a phrase I'd had to swallow before now in Esme's company.

I was guessing that, once upon a time, Esme had been nice enough. Okay, perhaps the sort schoolgirl that would break friends with you and then taunt you from her position as gang leader, or the sort of roommate that asked to copy from your work when her hangover and her deadline clashed. Nice enough, in respect to, as she would put it herself,
the nasty world out there.

S
hortly after Esme hooked up with Stefan, her ceramic work had gone viral. Stonedown Farm was an ideal place to hangout if you were a potter, and Esme had always made pots. She'd decorated them with images of the Green Man or Cernunnos, the
wild-wood
god, and sold them in the shops along Glastonbury High Street for enough money to keep her in clay, at least. When she widened her designs, using more abstract images and bolder colours, she was offered exhibition space in a small London gallery and before she knew it, her pots were reaching silly prices at auction.

Almost imperceptibly, Esme changed. When she'd first met Stefan you could enjoy her company. Since then she'd developed a sneer that presumably extended to most of the human race, excluding only Stefan and any artist reaching more at auction that she was.

I was still trying to like Esme, but she didn't make it easy. If the victim with a bashed head had been a
well-respected
painter, she would have gone with Stefan to sit at his bedside. As it was, we were all just scum, now.

There was something else about that conversation knocking around at the back of my head. The guy in hospital had worked at Glastonbury Abbey.

I stopped in a
lay-by
and reread the second email.

The passage from the abbey grounds into the Hollow Hill has been blocked.

The wording was just as strange as on first read, but that strangeness suddenly felt chilling.

Until now, I had wondered why Morgan le Fay, whoever she was, picked out Brice for her nasty little joke. With a jolt, I saw that it might not be a joke at all.

Two mentions of the abbey grounds in less than two hours. There's an old saying I read somewhere, probably Facebook.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action
.

I thought it through as I sat in the
lay-by
and came to the conclusion that was all it was. Coincidence. Not weird enough to get me buzzing. I would wait for the third thing.

Or at least, I thought I would … until I found myself in the abbey car park. I wasn't going to be long, so I left my flashers on in the hope any traffic warden would think I was seeking change for a ticket. Even the car park asphalt glowed in the sun and the dusty smell of the hot afternoon came into my nostrils. I went up to the pay booth for the abbey and hailed the chap inside. “Hi there!”

“Just one ticket?”

I'd already studied the entrance fee and knew I couldn't afford it. I'd been inside a couple of times in the past and was hoping I'd get away with some free information. I started out with a nice, fat lie. “I was here earlier, with my family, d'you remember me?”

“Not really, I wouldn't, I'm afraid. We get thousands passing through on a day like this.”

I flashed him a glance, hoping it didn't have too much gratitude at the edges. “I was just wondering if you had any news on that poor volunteer who got attacked.”

“Gerald Evens? Sorry, I don't. Bad business, wasn't it.”

“Awful,” I said, filing the name away. “I know he was taken to hospital. Stefan McKiddie is with him. I've just been talking to his partner, Esme, you know, out at Stonedown Farm?”

He nodded. “I don't know Stefan personally, but—”

“I suppose you see most of Glastonbury in here,” I said.

“Oddly, no. We see the rest of the world—Americans, Europeans, Japanese …”

“Does someone called Morgan le Fay take an interest?”

“You mean as a Friend of Glastonbury Abbey?”

“That or someone who comes here on occasion?”

“I know a Morgan—a bloke.”

“This is the full works. Morgan le Fay.”

“Typical of the hippie types in the town. They're all Mikes and Johns, really, but they're not satisfied with the name they were given by their mothers. They all have to choose some fancy alternative.”

“Not like Gerald.”

“No. He was a solid churchgoer. That's why people volunteer, mostly. To give back to the church. He was a nice person.”

“Was? He's not—”

“I don't know for certain. He wasn't saying much as they took him away.” The man smiled at me, as if that thought would keep him going until Christmas.

“Do you mind if I ask you one more question?”

He inclined his head, offering a flash of
female-pattern
balding. “Please.”

“Did Gerald have an argument or disagreement with anyone? Here in the grounds?”

“Someone called Morgan le Fay?”

“Yes,” I said, my hope flaring.

“Gerald Evens couldn't have an argument with swarm of wasps. He's one of the gentlest persons I knew.”

“I was more thinking, did someone pick a fight with him?”

“He never said.”

“He wouldn't be able to, would he?”

He paused, observing me carefully. “Is there something you know about the accident? Because if there is …”

“I'm just shooting in the dark. I wish I did know something. Except, well, it was no accident, was it?”

The man folded his hands and I did the same, both of us contemplating that fact.

eleven

babette

I felt exhausted when
I got home. I was hungry, but not in the mood for heavy cooking. I went into the garden and picked a bunch of salad leaves. I straightened my back, standing in the middle of the salad bed, and put my free hand on my brow to shade my sight from the long shafts of sunlight and shadows that come before a June summer dusk. I thought I'd detected some movement … a crackling sound within the pea sticks. My heart was in my mouth as I crept forward. My pea sticks are all snaggy ends of branches and right in the centre of them I could see something white and grey. “Florence?” I called. My voice cracked as if I hadn't used it in days. “Flo, pretty Flo? Chuck-chuck-chuck?” I took one step too close and the bird flew up, with a heavy clattering of wings, landing in the big apple tree in the Wraxalls' garden. It was a collared dove, after my baby peas. I roared at it, waving my fist, as competent gardeners are supposed to do. In my heart I knew Florence had been a tasty meal for a nest of sparrowhawk chicks.

I put the salad leaves in my basket and pulled up some baby carrots and beetroot, thinning the rows as I went. These took ten minutes to scrub and head and tail, but once they were ready, I threw them into light oil with crushed garlic, some black pepper, and a final squeeze of lemon, knowing they would taste heavenly, hot or cold. I made an omelette, lavished the lot in mayo and wolfed it at the breakfast bar.

My eyes strayed to my drum, newly back from its adventures. I had experienced the most vivid and surprising journey at Stonedown, and I was convinced that was because I'd been drumming at the same time.

The Lower Realms were the place of the ancestors, where shamans are likely to find the spirits of the dead, ancestral souls who are waiting to move on or even staying to communicate with the spirits of the living. Shamans most easily access these realms by falling—into a well, down a drain … or into the bole of an ancient oak. Why had Trendle led me there? Was it to communicate with the dead?
A wasted place, stagnant, despoiled
, the Lady of the River had described it. I
had
seen a wasteland, no doubt of that.

The message Brice had been sent by the enigmatic Morgan le Fay was imprinted in my head. …
the
wasteland creeps over Logres.
If there was a connection between the emails and the attack in Glastonbury Abbey, then it hardly surprised me that my otherworld journeys had already touched on this link.

I got up smartly and washed my dishes. I had to be kidding myself. Glastonbury could be
uber-crazy
, but even I couldn't believe one person would attack another because of a belief in the Wasteland of Logres.

I knew that legend well enough. It's a deeply symbolic story, seeped in ancient myth, from a time when plenty and starvation were hairsbreadths away from each other, back when man worshipped Earth goddesses and gods and believed that if a king was wounded, his land would also sicken. In the Arthurian tale, the wells of the land dry up when the maidens who look after them are raped or killed. Such wells held the people's drinking water and in such
long-ago
times, losing them would have led to famine and thirst.

One of King Arthur's knights searches through Logres for the grail, in the hope the land will become fruitful again. He reaches the castle of the Fisher King, who has been wounded and so is unfit to govern his kingdom. No branch holds a leaf. No field ripens with corn. The farmer's nightmare, then as now. In the story, the knight has to ask the right question of the Fisher King to heal the wasteland … but he doesn't know what that question is.

Did the Lower Realm I had seen in my journey link to Morgan le Fay's wasteland? Did I need to find the right question to heal it?

I was unsure about the new otherworld spirit I had met. In the light of the fire, his face had glowed deep bronze. A guardian, I was sure; an African shaman of great age and wisdom. The brew on the fire had been waiting for me, ready to add power to my silk braid, so that it could stretch out of the Lower Realm and glimpse the woodland I'd seen.

A red deer in a glade slanted with sun. So beautiful—the sort of scene people capture in art. I looked up from the sink. I
had
seen a picture just like that one. Where had I been? Not a gallery. I never go to galleries. In a magazine or book?

In a sketchpad.

Babette Johnson's sketchpad was lying in my desk drawer. I sat at the desk and turned the pages. My original evaluation that Babe would become a fine artist did not diminish this time round. I turned another of the wide pages and stopped in my tracks. A woodland sketch brought to life in pastel crayons—full summer, the sun setting. An awesome picture. And almost the exact scene I had witnessed so fully. Except there was no red deer.

I turned every page in the Babette's sketchpad, looking deeply into the pictures. She had drawn the forest creatures within her landscapes—ponies, butterflies, the odd bird overhead, sometimes herds of deer in the background—but nowhere had she depicted a solitary red hind with the imploring eyes that I had seen in my journey.

I went over to my bookcase and pulled out one of my books on shamanic symbols.

The red deer, in its female form, is better called the hind. In ancient times, the Celts considered them sanctified. It was believed the fairies milked them and sometimes took their form. The skin of a hind deer was treasured and would alone be used to make the clothes of their high-status womenkind. A meeting with this magical beast could lead to enchantment. It could also be a harbinger of doom.

A sharp awareness hit me. This journey to the wasteland had occurred shortly before Ricky had told me about Babe—I could bet he'd been thinking about her in that circle, trying to psych himself up to ask me for my help. It made me wonder if I had descended to that Lower Realm simply to find Babe. And if Babe was in a Lower Realm, that meant she wasn't of this world anymore. Except, I'd shifted realms when I'd stepped onto the threshold of the African shaman's hut. It was why he'd connected me to my silk braid, to stop me wandering. Maybe the woodland glade was Babe's otherworld—which meant Ricky was right to wonder if she could still be found.

I booted up my laptop. Of course there would be news reports about a missing girl. I tapped in “Babette Johnson” and waited. Suddenly, the search page was littered with sites, all on the subject of Babe. I closed my eyes against them.

They were full of loss.

MISSING NEW FOREST SCHOOLGIRL

Hampshire police put out an alert for a missing schoolgirl yesterday evening when she failed to return home from visiting a friend. It has now been disclosed that she did not reach the friend's house. Police have issued a recent photo of Babette Johnson, and ask that anyone who may have seen her in the last twenty-four hours contact them on the following helpline …

MISSING GIRL: POLICE STEP UP SEARCH

Missing teenager Babette Johnson had not rowed with her parents before her disappearance, it was revealed today. At a press conference, Richard Johnson, nineteen, appealed for his sister to return home. “We love you so much. Every day without information is heartbreaking. Please, if anyone knows anything, phone the hotline.” Police state that they are extending their search to the wider New Forest area …

RECONSTRUCTION OF LAST KNOWN MOVEMENTS

A reconstruction of the last known movements of missing schoolgirl Babette Johnson was staged in the New Forest village where she lives. The 16-year-old was last seen walking through the village and down Pigend Lane, towards the home of a school friend. Police hope the reconstruction will bring new information as they continue their search. Babette's last movements were acted by a police cadet from the Hampshire Constabulary …

BABETTE JOHNSON; FIRST ANNIVERSARY

The first anniversary of the disappearance of teenager Babette Johnson has resulted in a fresh appeal for information from the public. The photograph that was released during the original search for the bright student features in the fresh appeal. Her family remain adamant that something has happened to her. “Babette would get in touch if she possibly could,” her father said in a statement today. “And we are still asking people to be vigilant.”

I sat in contemplation of this puzzle almost until it was time for bed. An early night would do me good. Tomorrow there was a full diary of clients plus my evening shift at a local drinker's pub, the Curate's Egg, and that mean a late night and a busy one.

Saturdays at the Curate's Egg didn't feel like work anymore. I'd grown fond, in an exasperated way, of Kev, the landlord, and Nige, the other member of the bar team. It was like getting paid for a night out—I knew all the regulars and they were mostly a laugh, and my mates would pop in on the way to somewhere else, or stay to listen to the live music. Tonight my friend and shamanic partner Marianne came in with her boyfriend, Geoff. They stayed for one drink; they had an office party to go to.

“I haven't been to a good party in ages,” I told them.

“You can go to this one instead of us, if you like,” said Marianne. “Our office parties are horrid. It is all about who will end up shagging whom, behind which photocopier.”

Geoff laughed, but I was quite shocked. Marianne's first language is Dutch, and although her English is impeccable, it's also usually untainted with anything close to a rude word.

“The band's good,” said Geoff.

“Yeah, one of Kev's better choices.”

“Sort of a fusion between pop now and pop
way-back
-when.”

We looked over at the group; singer, three guitars, and a drummer. They were
way-back
-when themselves, with Mick Jagger lines scored in their faces and a general lack of hair on their heads. They were giving us
up-beat
tunes and had balanced their speakers so that you could hear the lyrics. The crowd responded by getting up between the tables and bopping.

I started to talk about the solstice night on the Tor. It was good to share with someone who would understand; Marianne and I were part of a small group of pagans called the Temple of Elphame, and last midwinter
we'd held a ritual in my garden to watch the dawn arrive. It would have been nice to do the same thing for the midsummer, but Juke and I had chosen to be in Glastonbury. We'd invited the rest of the group, but Garth and Stella had a very new baby and the others hadn't fancied it. I imagined they'd now be glad they'd stayed away.

“It is a dreadful thing,” Marianne said.

“I actually hate the idea of ever going up the Tor again.”

“Then you should go. And soon.”

With that disquieting advice, Marianne and Geoff went on their reluctant way.

I kept my eye on the door as I worked, and at nine thirty I was rewarded. Rey pushed his way in, still wearing his work suit and looking dark under the rims of his eyes.

I hadn't seen anything of Rey since he'd brought the curry round, and I hadn't texted him since. Six months into being Rey's proper girlfriend, I was sanguine about his lack of spare time. He knew where I was if he was free of the demands of Avon and Somerset's Constabulary. I tossed him a toothy smile and was rewarded with a tired grin.

As he made it towards the bar, a woman came into the pub. Every eye in the room turned to her; every male eye, that was.

She strutted in, shrugging her shoulders out of her summer jacket and tossing her hair. Her hair took my breath away—a mass of waves the colour of pennies when they're newly minted. She'd parted this curtain of hair to one side to soften her high forehead. Between the curtains were eyes of unachievable deep blue that took your glance and refused to give it back, and a
wanna-kiss
-me mouth slashed with orange lippy.

The one good thing was that Rey hadn't noticed the woman at all. He got busy searching his inside jacket pocket for his wallet, but before I could say hi, I was shoved aside as Nige moved into action.

He leered at the woman. “What can I fix for you, miss? I don't believe I've seen you in here before. Would you like one of our
on-the
-house introductory cocktails?”

My mouth fell open. We didn't do “
on-the
-house introductions”
—ever—and Nige had no idea how to mix a cocktail.

“I'll get these.” Rey had found his wallet and was turning to the woman as if he'd known she'd been there all along. “Shiraz, isn't it?”

“Perfect,” said the woman and stretched her fuckable mouth into a smile.

“Oh, Sabbie, this is Pippa. Remember I told you? Thought I'd bring her in to say hi.”

“Hi, Sabbie,” said Pippa, reining in the smile.

“What're
you
having?” Rey asked, as if I cared. “Usual vodka and tonic you never drink?”

“Er …” I wanted to squeal,
you are Pippa Chaisey?
and tip a pint over her Titian locks. I turned my back on them, since Nige had taken charge. I put up the big order for the band members, who were heading towards their halfway break. I carried the tray of drinks over and when I got back to the bar, Rey and his sidekick were gone. They'd miraculously found a table (I guessed Rey had flashed his ID or perhaps just bounced the previous occupants out of their seats). Rey lifted a hand and waved at me. I couldn't work out if he was hailing me as the barmaid or calling me over for a chat.

He surely knew I wouldn't have time to chat. I didn't
want
time to chat. What sort of conversation could you have with a woman who should be on the front cover of
Cosmopolitan
rather than sitting opposite your boyfriend?

“Isn't it time you went out for a ciggie?” I said to Nige.

“What? Okay, if you can cope.”