Beneath the Tor (12 page)

“Don't worry about me, Nige. I can cope with anything.”

I knew he'd be twenty minutes minimum, and as Kev was now chatting to the band, I could keep myself flat out busy. Even so, I found the time to cast a glance over to Rey and his new detective sergeant now and again. They certainly didn't need my small talk. They were engrossed in conversation. When Rey spoke, Chaisey listened with care. When Chaisey spoke, Rey nodded, earnestly. Once, he laughed at something she said.

I saw so little of Rey, and foolish thoughts ran through my head when he was away. I already had a pair of rivals. Number Two was his wife; fair enough, she'd been around a long time. Number One was his job. Nothing kept him from that. I hadn't reckoned on a Number Three, but here she was, drinking in my pub. A sensation washed through me, forcing me to lean against the beer taps while I controlled my breath.

“Sabbie?”

I started. Rey had come to the bar and was examining my face, as if I'd printed my thoughts over it.

“Are they working you too hard here? You've lost your sparkle.”

I couldn't tell him that Pippa Chaisey was sucking all the sparkle out of me. I was lovesick, was all. Love ill.

“Sabbie, I'm so sorry I haven't been around more. Things are difficult.”

“What things?”

“Oh … meetings and that. It's complicated. Anyway, how are you?”

“I'm still reeling, if the truth was known.”

“The death on the Tor? I picked up something about it on the grapevine, but it's certainly not being handled as a criminal case.”

“I went to the opening of the inquest with Alys's husband, Brice Hollingberry. I told him what you said about it all taking at least six weeks. He was cut up by the idea, so I hope you were right, Rey.”

“He could try phoning the support service at the coroner's office to ask about the autopsy result. As he's the next of kin, they might give him a bit of a feeler up front.”

“Really?”

“It does depend on the coroner, so I can't guarantee.”

“I'll tell him that. You can guess how on edge he is. He didn't talk about what he thinks Alys died of, but he's always emphasizing her fitness and her ethical way of life. Perhaps he has suspicions he won't articulate.”

“Recreational user?”

I shrugged. I had wondered if Brice had found out about Stefan's stash of tablets, and was waiting to pounce—to lay the blame at someone's door once he was sure of his facts.

“What hasn't helped is that Brice is receiving poison pen emails.”

I passed my phone across the bar. Rey read both messages then gave me a slanted look. “When did he receive these?”

“At shitty times, when I think about it. The first came while he was still in the hospital with Alys. The second came before the inquest opened.”

“There are a lot of weirdos out there. How many people witnessed Alys's death?”

“Gosh, maybe a hundred.” I watched Rey's mouth curl into a smile. “Yeah, okay …
maybe a hundred weirdos
.”

“Did I say that?” He raised his hands to ward off blows.

“Want to know the oddest thing about this?”

“I'm not sure. When it's you asking that question, I'm wary of what will come next.”

“Well you might, Mr. Detective. Because the day the second message arrived, someone was attacked. They had their head bashed in. They're still in hospital in a coma.” I knew this because I had rung the hospital, pretended I was a friend, and checked up.

“And the connection is …”

“They were a volunteer at the abbey grounds.”

“What?”

I tapped my finger on the screen. “‘The passage from the abbey grounds into to the Hollow Hill has been blocked. The Red Knight is both thief and liar and has been fatally struck down.' This chap, Gerald Evens, was attacked there in the grounds.”

“At the abbey?”

“Yes.”

“There you go. Case solved when witness fingered alluring woman in
gem-encrusted
cloak.”

“The police are investigating,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm and hoping I was right. Rey shook his head. I knew that gesture and what he would say after it, so I said it for him. “I'm not going to get involved, Rey.”

“Good. You always see harbingers and innuendoes.”

I checked over to where Pippa Chaisey was steadily sipping her wine. Her legs were pushed away from the table, crossed above the knee. The heels on her shoes made a starting point that took the eye up and up. “That's because there often
are
harbingers and innuendoes.”

“Huh?”

“You're not working tomorrow night, are you? Come over and I'll cook. You always say it helps the thinking processes to put some distance between you and a difficult case.”

“Not tomorrow. Sometime soon, but … I'm not brilliant company at the moment.”

I choked down the reply that he was here in the pub, being very good company to his companion. “You don't have to be brilliant company, Rey. That's not what our relationship's about.”

“Hope not, with my low social skills rating.”

“Do you want another round?”

“Not for me, and I think Pippa just has the one, before she turns in.”

“Turning in now, are you?”

“I'm knackered. And there's paperwork waiting at home.”

“Could you do one favour for me?” I searched his face. “Is that a ‘no' before I've even told you what the favour is?”

“I'm a cop, Sabbie. I'm perceptive, astute. I don't have to ask. You want me to investigate these emails.” He drained his glass. “I can't. That's the honest truth. Right this minute, there's no chance.”

I could see Pippa was not going to wait any longer. She unwound her legs and came towards us. For the first time, I noticed she had freckles. They were dotted around the top of a neat nose, pale against her creamy skin. She arrived at the bar and gave me a caricature of a smile as she flicked her flaming hair out of the way and slung her big shiny bag over her shoulder. Just the right size for holding a big shiny gun.

“It's okay,” I said. “I understand.” I leaned over the bar, grabbed
his jacket lapels, and lavished him with a lusty, possessive kiss. I kept it going for as long as I could then pulled away, leaving Rey
lipstick-slavered
and disheveled. “You go.” I gave his lapels a shove. “Go home, both of you. Get some beauty sleep.”

twelve

laura

Tuesday morning I prepped
my therapy room early. I had appointments all day, and I was keen to get to work. Laura Munroe would be my first client at eleven, and I intended to work with the little mascot she'd left me—the Pokémon figure. I set it on my palm. Most Pokémon fans had an entire collection of cards and stuff; it was odd to love just one figure. I'd missed out on the craze, so I'd gone online to find out about Raichu. Apparently, he was the evolved form of Pikachu, but he was neither a strong nor useful player.

I took a long drink of water, got changed into my shamanic gown, and called power into my therapy room, lighting the candles and incense. I lay on my back, rested Raichu on my stomach, and pulled a scarf over my eyes. The drumming CD was already playing, but I was slow getting settled into a deeper place. There was nothing making me feel uncomfortable as I lay on the cushions. Everything was as it should be—the scarf wasn't tickling and I didn't have a sudden urge to scratch my leg or anything.

I tried my meditation technique, counting breaths until I forgot to count, then starting again from one. I was almost up to fifty when I finally lost the room and could feel heather beneath the soles of my feet. I took a breath of damp country air. There was a mist over the far meadows, a
fairy-breath
of whiteness, but when I looked more closely, I realized it was not mist. A gauze veil had been thrown over my vision. And Trendle was nowhere to be seen.

I opened my eyes and the trance lifted like the fairy mist. There was no point trying to continue. The journey had aborted because Trendle hadn't wanted to take me on it. I trusted my otter implicitly. Without him, I was no more than a wanderer on a rainbow bridge. I lay still, trying to think, stroking the tiny Pokémon mascot with one finger. Raichu wasn't a pretty thing. Like all loved toys, it was the worse for wear. Its yellow had faded, and one ear, which must have come unstitched, had been reattached with the wrong colour thread, as had the white patch of felt that constituted its apron.

There was something stuck under the apron. I could feel it with the pulp of my thumb. I sat up and looked closer. The inexpert stitching around the patch meant I could ease the foreign body out. It was nothing—a skinny bit of pink plastic. I rolled it between my fingers. Nothing at all. I got out Laura's notes to refresh my memory. Last appointment, she'd been given an odd little power animal—a fluffy chick. I had visited a cave in my journey and brought symbols back with me; a waterfall, a song, and a fingerpost. I looked at the sliver of plastic more closely. It did look eerily like a finger. I slid it back under the apron.

“How have things been, Laura?” I began. “D'you want to bring me up to speed?”

“Okay.” She took a couple of deep breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth. “I have seen Daniel.”

“Good.”

“Actually, it
was
good. We had a proper chat. With the stuff we'd done here, I didn't feel so scared of him. I asked if I had to go into hospital and straight away he said, no—no, not if I could successfully manage my medication at home. I asked him what the medication would do, and he said I could have antidepressants and a small dose of Valium, but I'd have to come off the Valium after a while. That sounded okay to me, so we've agreed on a sort of programme. I've got this plastic drugs dispenser so that they come ready to take and we're going to give that a month or so to see if it will work.” She stopped for breath, but the emotions coming off her felt controlled and far more confident.

“Did he mention anything like cognitive therapy?”

“Yes, but there's a waiting list. He gave me exercises …
strategies
… to use when I panic. I told him about you, and all the certificates on your wall, and he said that you might help a lot.”

I asked her to lie on the floor cushions so that I could I rattle her.

“Do what?”

I passed her my rattle, and explained that it was made of calfskin and beechwood by a craftsman called Freaky.

“Weird name, Freaky!”

“I've no idea what his real name is, but that's what everyone calls him. If you ever went to Glastonbury for the day, you'd probably see him. He sometimes sells his things from a blanket spread out by the church. He's lived there for decades. Since the end of the Swinging Sixties, you know? According to Freaky, the town was filled with hippies and they all lived under canvas around the Tor and spend their days drinking the spring water and communing with nature spirits. I guess Freaky must have been in his twenties then, but he still has lovely long dreadlocks. All the others have left over the years; finally joined the rat race, I guess, or bought houses in Glastonbury. Freaky lives in a caravan. He's a marvellous craftsman.”

“Yes,” said Laura, handing back the rattle. “It's beautiful.”

“He wove his journeys of me into it. That makes it special and tremendously effective.”

“What does it do?”

“Tells me things I'd never see with my actual eyes. When I rattle it over someone's prone figure, it works like a sort of subtle metal detector.”

Laura burst out laughing. “What, you going to find gold inside me?”

“Maybe. We've all got some treasure, hidden away.” Without further bidding, she lay on the cushions. I draped her with a fleece. “Just close your eyes, breathe naturally, and let your mind go wherever you want it to.”

I stood for half a minute, to let her become still, and to attune myself to the rattle, which would speak most clearly if it and I were already working in harmony.

At first, I passed the rattle over her without direction, waiting and watching for a shift in perception, for movements in my mind. It was like dowsing; when water was hiding, the rod could tell you where. After a while I could see Laura's outline, floating under water, held steady by a sort of membrane. She was in a net, trapped like a dolphin. I couldn't see her breathe. I couldn't see any part of her vibrate with life.

I held the moment so that I could understand what I'd seen through the energy waves of my rattling. Then I put the rattle on my altar and dragged a cushion over so that I could perch next to Laura. She opened her eyes, sat up, and looked across at me.

“Is that it?”

“I'd like to tell you what I found in the rattling. It's to do with what Shamans call ‘soul.'”

“My soul?” she asked.

“Yes. The spark of the divine within us, is how I'd put it.”

“Isn't it the part of you that continues after death?”

“And continues through birth, if, like me, you believe in reincarnation.”

“I think I do. Feels like more of a solid bet to me.”

“In my mind, having a soul is tantamount to being alive. When we're born, we have enough energy to power us through our lives. The body and the soul work together, driving off each other. When someone as young as you loses that drive, I think that's because, somehow, their soul isn't fully operational. I think you've lost a part of your soul.”

She gripped her hands together. “Sounds weird.”

“It's a plausible explanation for feeling so out of control, so lacking in energy, and so …” I ran out of words.

“So scared of nothing?”

I nodded. “Perhaps you're not scared of nothing. Perhaps you're scared because part of your soul is missing.”

“That would scare anyone!”

“Instinctively, you arrived at my door. Because that's what shamans do. They search for shattered soul parts and retrieve them.”

“Blimey,” said Laura. “Like fishing?”

I thought of her, weightless and deathlike in her net. “I'm positive that this is my role now. To go in search of the part of your soul which is missing and retrieve it for you.”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“No, Laura, that's how I work!”

“Okay. Okay, cool.”

I stopped and breathed several times. “I was working with Raichu again this morning and noticed something about the little apron he wears.”

“That's a part of his evolution—Raichu is an evolved Pokémon creature. His ears and his white belly are part of his evolved state.”

“The white bit fell off, didn't it? Along with an ear.”

“Yeah. Poor Raichu got some seriously bad treatment in the past.”

“Who sewed him back together?”

“I did. I wasn't a great sewer until I joined the navy, though.”

“There's something trapped in there.”

“No there's not.”

“See for yourself.”

“No.”

“It's easy to get it out because the stitching's broken.”

She shook her head. “It's nothing.”

“It certainly isn't much.” I gave the toy a shake and the sliver of plastic fell into my palm. “But it is something. Isn't it, Laura?”

Two spots of red appeared over her cheekbones. She took a shuddering breath. “It's a thumb.”

“Pardon?”

“A doll's thumb. From a Barbie.”

“So it is! I knew I recognized it; I just couldn't figure where or how.” I smiled at her, but my smile faded. Her plump shoulders had drooped forward. Her gaze was fixed on the floor between her knees. She was trembling, her entire body shaking, her face was burning with internal heat. I held her hand steady. “Remember your strategies.”

“Strategies,” she said. “Yes.” She put a hand in front of her mouth and retched into the palm. Her breathing was wild. She scrabbled to get up, as if she couldn't find a comfortable position to breathe from.

“Why don't you lie down again.”

“It … might …” Even her teeth had begun to chatter. “Might
… help.”

She rolled into a foetal ball and I covered her with fleeces. Her cries came through the inhalations like the whoops of a child with croup. “Oh! Oh!” I sat beside her, gripping her hands. She clung to me as if I was on dry land and she was dangling over deep water.

“Something's bubbling up, isn't it? So many clues. We should follow where they lead.”

She took a slow, controlling breath and blew it out between pursed lips.

“There's Raichu, a cave, and a song. And a fingerpost—that reminds me of the Barbie doll thumb. Was she your Barbie?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Did you love her same as Raichu?”

“No. I hated Barbie.”

“Is that why you cut off her thumb?” It seemed full of meaning, to me. She'd disfigured her doll—butchered it. “When you were small?”

“Laurie did it.”

“Laurie?”

“What I used to call my pretend friend. You know, like little kids have.”

“An invisible friend.”

“Yeah …” The squeeze of her hand stung mine. Her shoulders were shaking under the fleeces. “I'm so cold,” she said.

I didn't want to leave her, even just to turn the heating up. I just held onto her hand.

“Do you remember cutting the thumb off?”

“I didn't! Laurie did it!”

“Okay, that's okay.”

“It was just a thumb! Skinny,
silk-haired
creature.”

“You didn't like her skinny body?”

“Laurie didn't like Barbie. We cut off all her hair. I chucked her under my bed. It was just a stupid
doll
, Sabbie.”

She was quiet. I wondered if she'd fallen into an exhausted doze.
Then she said, “You're right. I do feel a part of my soul is missing.” Bit by bit, her colour returned. Her breathing quietened. The pressure from her fingers was firm, but the chill in them struck at me like steel.