Beneath the Tor (14 page)

“She was probably depressed,” I said.

“And how. At the start of the next year she looked a wreck. That cheeky personality was in bits. The weight had fallen off her and she still wasn't eating. I was scared for her, Sabbie. I'd been a rubbish friend too; all summer we'd gone off partying and do you know what she'd done? She'd joined a sort of club called the 100 Day Fast.”

For some reason, although I'd never heard the term before, it made my skin go cold.

“For one hundred days, you drink only water.”

“
What
? That's crazy. Dangerous.”

“Yes, it was horrible. She was still doing it, and trying retake her GCSEs and start her A levels all at the same time. I thought she was going to break down and end up in hospital, but I rallied the gang round and we gentled back into eating. By the end of the school year, she was okay. Not eating well—to be honest she's never eaten well since—but she'd put on half a stone.”

“Where does Brice come in?”

“They met four years ago. She'd just had her thirtieth birthday. Within six months, Brice had spent his banker's bonus on a big meringue wedding. They started trying for a baby from day one.”

“Did Brice know …”

“He doesn't know any of this. And I don't want him hurt, Sabbie.”

“Don't worry, I'm not a
tale-tat
.”

“She couldn't pin down why she failed to get pregnant. Whether it was the years of being super skinny or the thing that happened in the clinic. Brice went for a sperm test and confronted her with the result, which was positive—good sperm count. She phoned me up in a panic, scared he was going to insist she go in for investigations.”

“Poor Alys,” I said. I thought again. “Poor Brice.”

“Why did you mention drugs?” Shell asked.

“Oh, nothing. No reason.”

“Really?”

I pursed my lips together as if that would prevent me saying more, but I'd've needed duct tape for that. “Was Alys a user? Sometimes anorexic behavior goes with that sort of lifestyle.”

“I don't think so. I never saw her take anything on a night out while we were kids, let alone later. And Brice is a pretty staid guy; he'd never touch anything like that. Anyway, we might soon know for sure.”

“Has Brice heard?”

“He's been promised an appointment with someone from the Coroner's office. As soon as the labs are done with their tests, I think.”

“That's good. Isn't it?”

“
In my experience of life, things never quite turn out like you think they will. That's the trouble.” Shell pushed her chair back and crossed her legs. She was wearing a salmon pink top and a
shape-hugging
sherbet-lemon
mini skirt. A fat leather belt with a rhinestone buckle clinched her soft waist. She had purchased an armful of bangles in a shop on Glastonbury High Street that chimed
as they fell together. Their colours picked up the pink and yellow, and the turquoise from the peacock feathers on her hat and earrings. I'd sort of assumed that, like a lot of Wolfs's girlfriends, Shell didn't do anything much, but I now knew she made jewellery. I was about to ask about this when she said, “Heard from Ricky since the Tor?”

“No … I think he's in touch with Juke.”

“They're old uni mates, aren't they?”

I gave her a girlie look. “You've heard from him?”

“Er … we've been chatting. Facebook … the phone …”

“Just be careful, sweetie, okay?”

“What d'you mean?”

“Wolfs likes—er—solidarity from his ladies.”

“Solidarity?”

“In plain text: he can be the jealous kind. You know, doesn't believe men and women can sustain a platonic relationship … ergo …”

“
You
have a platonic relationship with him.”

“Trust me, this isn't
logical
reasoning.”

“What the heck. He can believe what he chooses.”

“Isn't Ricky a bit young for you, Shell?”

She flicked me a grin, her eyes hidden behind the shades. “Cute, though. And far less gaseous.”

fourteen

freaky

I wasn't surprised that
Wolfsbane and Freaky returned empty-handed.

“They won't let it out until it's roadworthy,” said Wolfsbane. “The handbrake's broken and the wheels are ripped to shreds.”

“I hadn't planned on going far,” Freaky said. “As I explained to the Plods.”

“Can it be repaired?” Shell asked.

“Yes, but it will cost.”

Shell got up and spontaneously hugged Freaky's narrow frame. “I know a mechanic. Maybe he could help if we gave him a day out in Glastonbury.”

Wolfsbane was jangling his car keys. He wrapped his arm round Shell. “We have to split, I'm afraid. All the best, Freaky, eh, mate?”

“I'll be in touch,” Shell called as she was led away.

I looked at Freaky. “Where are you staying?”

“I did ask the Plods if I could sleep in the caravan in the pound.”

“That was a no, then?”

“Maybe the Backpackers Hostel will cut me a deal.”

“You've got no cash?”

He pulled the kitty out of his pocket. “I've got this, but it's not strictly mine. Otherwise, I'll have to wait till my pension's due.”

I knew that Freaky made the few pounds he lived on with his sacred painting and craftwork, and recently he'd begun to receive his state pension. He'd commented that it was enough to live like a king. I doubted other pensioners would agree, but finance is relative, I guess.

“Put that away and come home for the night with me. In the morning, things will look clearer.” I wondered about phoning Rey and asking if he could have a word with his Glastonbury colleagues, but the facts wouldn't change; the caravan was still not roadworthy.

On the walk back to my car, Freaky was very quiet, which wasn't like him. I gave his arm a squeeze. “It will be all right, you know.”

“I've never sponged off my friends. I respect them. I'd never use them. You understand that, Sabbie, don't you?”

“I've got a spare room, Freaky, it's no bother.”

“It hurts like hell, nevertheless.”

We got going, heading west across the Somerset Moors, Freaky still in morose mood. He gazed out of his window as the countryside slid by. It was late afternoon. The sun was golden on the land. It was mostly dairy farming round here; although the fields had been drained generations ago, they still got boggy in the winter and didn't hold grain well, or sheep, for that matter.

“You don't see so much withy growing nowadays do you,” I remarked.

“True. Used to be the big commodity on the Somerset Levels. You could stick willow wands into the wet soil and in a year or two you had trees to coppice for basketmaking or wattle fencing. Not much call anymore.”

“That's sad.”

“It's all peat now.”

Out of sight of the roads were the excavations, tonnes of ancient peat bagged as growing medium for gardens. I had many reasons to hate that scourging of the land, but all I could do in practice was never buy
peat-based
compost.

As we crossed the Polden Hills, my phone rang. “Bugger,” I said, without thinking.

“Want me to get it for you?” Freaky dived into my shoulder bag. As someone who lived
off-grid
, he was always delighted to demonstrate his ability with modern technology. Freaky didn't own a phone or computer or even a TV, but seemed to know his way around receptionist duties. “This is Sabbie Dare's phone,” he began, “Freaky speaking.”

He listened carefully to the caller, nodding as if they could hear, while I mouthed, “Is it a client?” at him.

“Did you want to make an appointment?” he asked, and I could hear a tinny reply, but Freaky didn't scrabble for paper and pen or look to me for directions. “Okay, my friend, I'll tell her.” He took his time finding the right buttons to cut the call, then dropped my phone back into my bag. “That was
Marty-Mac
.”

I didn't recognize the name. “What did he want?”

“He said he knew you knew Reynard Buckley.”

I frowned. “Like, in what way?”

“In a getting a message to him sort of way.”

“Well, for goodness sake, why can't this Marty get his own message to Rey?”

“Apparently, they're not speaking.”

“Oh, great. Sounds like one of Rey's cronies wants me to be intermediary. Did he say what the message was?”

“Yeah … sort of.” He didn't go on.

“Sort of what?”

“Sort of confusing. The man was confused.”

“He must have phoned with something on his mind.”

“Why not phone him back, it might make more sense to you.”

“Give me something to go on, first.”

“I remember he said he was in dead shit, excuse the French.”

“He said that?”

“I put the French bit in.”

I spent the silence of the journey trying to make sense of this, alongside wondering what sort of houseguest Freaky would make. Although I'd only mentioned a
one-night
stay, I had a horrible feeling he would not be going anywhere for a while.

As well as shredded wheels, Freaky's caravan had no electric wiring. He used bottled gas to cook his food and to run an
evil-looking
wall-mounted
fire that gave out little heat but could burn you to blisters if you got too close. I knew the caravan was getting leaky, damp, and full of drafts, and Freaky, in a similar manner to his home, was becoming worn. His hair was turning from
pepper-and
-salt to pure white. His cheeks were hollow, but you couldn't see that because his beard grew in a haphazard fashion wherever it pleased. I believed Freaky kept it from hiding his entire face by using nail scissors, something I might be subjected to in full if he decided on a trimming in my bathroom.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Freaky?”

He turned to me and raised one eyebrow, a trick that always make me chuckle with delight as it transformed Freaky's face. “I'm
twenty-one
.”

“Yeah, you and me both. Seriously, you've never thought about settling more permanently?”

“Where, my friend? Why, my friend?”

“Living in a totally sustainable way is great when you're young and fit. But … well … you've been
twenty-one
for quite a long time, and … it can't be easy anymore.”

“I will not ever leave Glastonbury. Your offer is kind, but no.”

“That's a relief, then!” I laughed, hoping he would too. “I was thinking if you went to the council now, with the loss of your home, they'd probably help you find a
one-bed
flat.”

“With neighbours tolerant of long hours of chanting and drumming, I presume?”

“You won't know till you look, Freaky.”

He shifted in the seat. “They all went, in the end.”

“You're talking about the hippies?”

“Nineteen
sixty-nine
. There really was peace and love. We gave each other our hearts. Our bodies too.” He raised his eyebrow again and I giggled.

“I bet you were a total love machine, Freaky.”

“We were called the Freaks. That's how everyone knew us around Glastonbury. Elsewhere, it was ‘hippies,' but if you stayed on permanently
under the Tor, you got that nomenclature and you were proud of it. We had a commune. We squatted in a big old house not unlike Stonedown Farm. We used to dance all night tuned in with acid, up on the Tor or in the chambers of the Chalice Well.”

“What chambers?”

“They got bricked up, I think, but back then they were perfect for chilling out. The White Spring's the same, far out. We lived chilled and cool. We had no possessions. We ate no meat. Some only ate raw food, until Astral nearly died eating uncooked red beans. We got moved on eventually, of course, and some drifted away before the end. I shared a geodesic dome then, with a girl and her kid. That was into the eighties, I believe. She was a wonder. She called herself Seren, which is the Celtic word for
star
, but her real name was Tracey. The little girl, Sky, was a brilliant kid. She must be, oh, your age or more now.”

“Was she your kid, Freaky?”

“Who knows? Seren certainly did not.”

“They moved on, too?”

“One dark and stormy night—you might laugh, but really—the dome lifted off in a gale. We watched it from our sleeping bags. It flew like a kite, and the wind took it right over the top of the Tor. We found bits of it, the following day; some of the metal connectors, some rags of tarp. We fought; Seren left with Sky. We fought about a crazy thing—about the storm and the loss of the dome, which was no one's fault, not even the gods.”

“So you became the very last Freak in Glastonbury.”

“Yes. I've had the caravan since then. I bought it off a touring family who got to Glastonbury, parked up in a campsite which was part of Stonedown Farm's land at the time, and saw a brighter, shinier model on a show site. I gave them a fair price.”

“We're here,” I said, pulling into the kerb. “Welcome to 43 Harold Street.”

“My friend, it looks most welcoming.” Freaky leaned over and pecked a kiss on my cheek. His white bristles tickled my skin, making me smile.

Freaky rushed to the loo as soon as we got in; it had been a long journey. I took the opportunity to ring Rey. Usually I get voicemail, but he must have been on a quick break because he answered immediately.

“Hi, gorgeous.”

Well might he call me nice things; he had a lot of ground to make up. I hadn't seen this
so-called
boyfriend since he brought his detective sergeant temptress into the Curate's Egg four days ago. The vision of
red-gold
locks and freckly, porcelain skin hadn't left me.

“Hi, big boy. You okay?”

“I'm surrounded by bloody paperwork. Nightmare.”

“Aw, poor you. Not out on the beat?”

He gave a snort. “Get your roles sorted, Sabbie. It's the humble police constable that walks the beat. Your detective's main skill is brainwork.”

“No running after felons?”

“Absolutely. Abseiling walls, leaping from roof to roof, that sort of thing. Got to stay in peak condition.”

“Mmm, I know you're in peak condition.”

Having got the flirting out of the way, I told him about my staying guest. A little imp poked me with its trident and I made sure he realized that this was a male visitor, a pagan I had great respect for.

“What's his name?”

“Freaky.”

“
Freaky
!” He didn't speak for several moments, and I knew he was laughing, the sort of laugh that bubbles up from a giggle and gets you right in the solar plexus, so that you can't stop, can't even draw breath. “What sort of name is that?”

“A descriptive one. He's a Freak.”

“And a Freak is …”

“One of the original Glastonbury hippies.”

“Cool.”

“Very cool. Rey, come and say hello. I'm sure you two would get along famously.”

“Yeah. I will. Soon as I have a second to spare.”

I paused to digest this. I was never sure how to take what Rey said, which did make for a less than candid relationship at times. Probably all my fault, because I was the one reading things into his words, and he was the one who was straightforward to the point of bluntness. Now I was wondering if “a second to spare” meant he would be rushing round as soon as he'd put down the phone in a lather of suspicion, or that all his seconds were taken up with chasing Pippa Chaisey.

“I had a phone call, Rey. From someone trying to get in touch with you.”

“Who?” He sounded cautious. “What did they want?”

“Name of
Marty-Mac
. I didn't speak to this guy, Rey, but if you know him, perhaps you could give him a ring back. Freaky took the call. He's my PA at the moment.” I heard the flush go upstairs. “Better get back to my guest. Help him settle in.”

“Sabbie, what—”

I cut him off. Always leave before they want you to. I felt quite lighthearted as I went up the stairs.

I found Freaky exploring the second bedroom. And by
exploring,
I think I mean
nosing around
; every drawer was open and showed disruption (quite a tricky thing to accomplish in the existing mess) and now he was lifting the bedding, as if checking for lice. He didn't jump or drop the duvet when I arrived, but turned with a grin and said, “Ye Gods, Sabbie this is the Ritz in Paris compared to my van!”

Freaky had an oversized backpack stuffed with things salvaged from the caravan, so I cleared a drawer and a shelf (mostly by cramming things into another drawer and onto another shelf). He pulled off his boots to display sockless, grimy feet. I gave him a demonstration of how the shower worked, but he said he'd leave that to the morning.

We went downstairs and I put the telly on for him and made a pot of Darjeeling, which was one of the things Freaky had stuffed in his backpack. Apparently he drank little else, apart from the odd pint of beer.

“Make yourself at home,” I instructed. Freaky took the hint. He put his feet up on the coffee table and let out a ringing fart.

The doorbell went while we were downing the teas. My insides immediately wrung themselves into knots. Rey had found a second; he was here to look my visitor over. I tore along the hallway like a
five-year
-old expecting presents, but as I opened the door, I realized that neither of the figures waiting outside were
Rey-shaped
. In horror, I almost slammed it shut and hurtled back down the passage, but it was too late.

I was wavered between
What are you doing here
? and
Go away now
! but in the end I plastered on a smile. “Mrs. Mitchell, hello. Hi, Lettice.”