Craddock (23 page)

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Authors: Paul Finch,Neil Jackson

BOOK: Craddock
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Craddock couldn’t deny that what the woman said was true. Memories raced at him … things he’d learned at school and read in books. About the mythical treasure hoards of the distant past. About what this trove might contain: fabulous jewelry and raiment, finely crafted metalwork, gospels and psalters, heaps of gold coins and crucifixes, silver clasps, brooches, sacred cups and reliquaries encrusted with gemstones.
As though reading Craddock’s desire, Mallet again attacked the casket with his hammer and chisel, and now began to make progress. He swung a mighty blow at the top left-hand corner, and with a splintering
crack
, a gap opened down that side.
“
Ah-ha!” Mrs. Corelli said. “We strike the mother-lode.” She turned to Craddock. “Major?”
Against his better judgement, he nodded. “Very well … open it. While we’re here, we might as well see. But you, ma-am… you throw that gun away. I mean it!”
She gave a delicate shrug. “Why not?” And she tossed the little pistol into the shadows. “I’m sure there’s no need for it in any case. When you see our prize, I feel certain you’ll be won over.”
They watched intently as Mallet inserted a pry-bar into the gap, and threw all his weight against it. After a brief moment’s grunting and sweating, there was a sharp
crack
, and the slate lid came loose and slipped sideways. Foul, musty air exhaled, but Mrs. Corelli squatted down eagerly. Craddock took several steps forwards, to see.
To see …
To see a heap of wizened bones; dusty desiccated sticks held together by threads of leathery sinew, which crumbled even as the interlopers watched. There was a suggestion of ring-mail too, but only brown, corroded fragments. The jagged, rusty pieces of cheek and nose-guards were also visible, on what remained of a conical iron helm clamping the hollow shell of a skull.
“
What … what is this?” Jemima Corelli hissed, with a snake-like sibilance.
Craddock wondered the same thing. What – or rather,
who
? Who was so important that he would find his last resting place in the foundations of this final, myth-shrouded refuge of the Saxons? The church was called St. Brae’s. Was it Saint Brae himself? Craddock looked again at the nose and cheek-guards on the ancient helmet. No, not St. Brae. Not St. Brae at all, but …
Hereward.
Great Heaven, these were the bones of Hereward the Wake!
And then Mrs. Corelli screamed – a ghastly, vulpine sound. She rounded on Craddock like a lioness, and Mallet, taking his cue from his mistress, swept out with the hammer. Unintentionally, Craddock had come within striking range, so the heavy tool connected with the shotgun and knocked it clean out of his grasp.
Craddock hardly had time to react before Mallet leaped up and swung the hammer again, this time at his head. He just managed to duck it, and, falling into a crouch, slammed a quick, hard punch into the felon’s groin. Wheezing in agony, Mallet came down on top of him, and they wrestled together on the ground. Craddock knew that he had to win quickly; Mallet was much younger and stronger than he was. With no option, the major butted and bit, raked and clawed, and brutally gouged at the eyes of his opponent, finally clamping his teeth on the felon’s nose, twisting and tearing it with every inch of strength he had.
As Mallet yowled and writhed beneath him, Craddock was vaguely aware of Jemima Corelli tottering across the room towards the shotgun. Frantically, he pounded Mallet with punches, throwing everything into them that he had. Mallet’s face was now a bloody, broken mass, but it was too late. As Craddock tore himself up from the unconscious body, the woman, with a fiendish look in her eye, was advancing towards him, the shotgun trained directly at his heart.
Craddock scrabbled backwards until he reached the wall beside the stone coffin. He raised his hands in surrender, but he knew it wouldn’t mean anything. This scheming harpy, even if she had a pinch of human pity inside her – which he sincerely doubted – stood to lose too much if she let him live. Under circumstances like this, she’d more than likely kill her friends, never mind her enemies. The shotgun muzzle was about a foot from the major’s heaving chest when she halted. With slow satisfaction, she thumbed back the hammer on the single loaded chamber. He glanced up at her. There was wolf-like glee on her face; white teeth clamped down on her bottom lip with such ferocity that rivulets of blood dribbled over her chin.
And then, simultaneously, they sensed it – the presence.
As one, they turned towards the arch at the foot of the crypt stairs.
The thing stood there motionless, watching them. It looked much as Craddock had imagined it did when he’d glimpsed it from the corner of his eye out on the marshes. It was clad in fibrous rags, garments of such incredible age that they hung on its gaunt frame in the most threadbare fashion. Below those, it was swathed in the remnants of bandage-strips; ancient yellow linen now mildewed into loose swaddles of stinking cloth, beneath which a parchment flesh was stretched over shrunken, wand-like bones. But worse than any of this was its head, or rather its face. Its cranium was bald and shrivelled, as Craddock had already seen. Yet its face
wasn’t there
.
There were bumps and indentations for eye-sockets, mouth, nostrils, yet they, like the rest of the withered skull, were clad over in taut, tissue-thin skin. Somehow, by some horrendous supernatural mechanism, its visage had been wiped clean.
He was a man cursed,
the major remembered hearing;
a man without a bloodline or even an identity to call his own.
It came towards them, walking with a shuffling gait, as though small churchman’s feet took quick but dainty steps beneath its sackcloth skirts. Yet there was no sound from it, no click of footfalls, no rustle of material.
Craddock shrank back into the wall. Jemima Corelli tired to retreat as well, but she was obstructed by a buttress behind her. Instead, she raised the weapon.
“
Keep back!” she warned.
As though in direct response, it veered towards
her
specifically, never breaking pace. With a mad shriek, she fired, the flash and detonation furious in the enclosed space. But if the bucket-load of shot found its mark, there was no sign of it. The monstrosity came on regardless, straight up to her – until they were almost brow to brow.
“
No,” the woman begged, neck craned back, arteries pulsing in her exposed, sweat-sodden throat. “No, please …”
It gazed at her, if it
could
gaze. Then, slowly and deliberately, it lifted its right hand. It was a long, spindly thing of bleached, skeletal sticks, but it was a thing of death all the same. For the instant it touched her shoulder – noticeably it didn’t go for her throat, no attempt at strangulation was made – the colour fell from the murderess’s cheeks like milk draining from a jug. She gave a sucking gasp for air, but it was too little too late. Much too late.
Craddock watched, horrified beyond belief.
Physical contact with him is said to be death. One touch from his cursed finger, and human flesh withers like fruit on the vine.
Jemima Corelli was doing just that. The shotgun clattered to the floor, her backbone slowly arched as she leaned sideways. Then she crumpled down, like something deflated, like a sack of wine punctured. She was dead before she landed, the eyes rolled white in a face as pale and bloodless as marble.
A second passed, and the thing turned towards Craddock.
The major was too agonised from the fight to try to flee, too exhausted to make any sudden move. Above all, of course, he was paralysed with fear. Even as it shuffled towards him, he hunkered down behind Hereward’s coffin, expecting nothing but destruction. So certain of this was he, that he lay curled like a foetus, his eyes tightly closed – for several moments longer than he might have expected to.
When he finally found the courage to open his eyes again, he was astounded to see that he was alone in the crypt, apart from the bodies of Jemima Corelli and her two henchmen. He sat up and spotted the apparition again, though now it was leaving. He glimpsed it only from behind, as it climbed the stair.
Craddock clambered to his feet, intent on following. Immediately, he noticed that the coffin now lay empty. At first this hardly registered with him, but then it struck home forcefully. He peered into the bare crate for several moments, before staggering across the crypt with renewed energy. When he re-emerged into the church, he again caught only a glimpse of the thing as it passed out through the great west door, though on this occasion he saw that it was carrying something – a bundle of crumbling objects, which it clutched to its pigeon-chest with something like devotion.
Still Craddock wanted to follow, but first he had to check on Hendricks, who lay slumped in the central aisle. At first, he feared the curate was dead, but a light breathing revealed that he was only in a swoon. Evidently, he too had set eyes on the ghastly visitant, and he too had been spared.
Craddock finally stumbled outside into the frozen air. There was no indication now which way the thing might have gone. He hobbled down to the edge of the morass. From this point, even in daylight, it would be anyone’s guess which route it might have taken. But that was suddenly the least of Craddock’s problems.
“
You should’ve cleared out while you had the chance,” a cold voice said. “Either that or finished me off.”
Craddock looked round. Charnwood was standing behind him, grinning like an ape. He wasn’t too steady on his feet, and blood streaked the side of his face from his gashed temple, but his eyes were bright with rage, and in his right hand he clasped a thick-bladed knife of terrifying size and sharpness. It looked as though it might normally be used to butcher hogs.
“
Normally, I don’t polish folks off unless I’m being paid to,” he said. “But in your case … it’s on the house.”
As he drew the knife back to strike, Craddock flinched instinctively away, arms up to defend himself. But the attack never came.
Craddock glanced up, puzzled.
Charnwood held his posture rigidly for a moment, then staggered forwards a step. His jaw dropped and a glutinous river of blood came bubbling from his mouth. His glassy eyes transfixed Craddock as though he couldn’t understand what was happening to him. Then he toppled slowly over, dropping the knife in the process. A quivering shaft, cut from black ash, stood upright in the middle of his back. A half a yard behind that stood Madam Godhigfu, wrapped and shawled against the chill, but shivering from the effort of the mighty thrust she had just made.
“ ‘
Antiquated pig-sticker’ were the words I believe you used,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“
Well … you certainly stuck a pig with it.”
A few minutes later they’d ventured several yards into the fens, but under cover of night it was too risky even for Madam Godhigfu to go farther. The major told her everything, and, though it by turns thrilled, mortified and enthused her, she knew the bogs well enough not to risk life and limb chasing something that simply would not be caught. So they stood there, listening to the breathy muttering of the wetlands: the ploppings, the drippings, the call of a lonesome redshank – but no splashing, no plunging, no tell-tale noise of a fugitive trying to slough his way off to freedom.
“
There can be no freedom for him,” Madam Godhigfu finally said. “And once again, the Saxon Church is despoiled. The last true treasure of the English has to make its way to a new, safer resting place.”
Craddock nodded. “Yes … but it must be some consolation that, on this occasion at least, the invaders were beaten.”

 

 

SHADOWS IN THE RAFTERS

 

Bingham’s Gazeteer of Medical Science (winter edition) …

 

9(i) Phoneutria envenoming affects the human body in classic neuro-toxic fashion, meaning that the main object of its attack is the central nervous system. This will result in immediate and severe pain – both locally and centrally, a feverish condition, heavy, prolonged sweating, paralysis of limbs and eventual neurogenic shock, which in children and younger adults may lead to death.

 

It was pay-night, so the
Old Dog
beer-house was filled to its outer doors.
Pipe-smoke hung heavy and in either room drinking men shouted and jostled each other. The colliers were there in force with their sooty clothes and coal-grained faces, alongside mill-workers decked in clots of cotton, and foundry-men fresh from shift, their faces still bearing the ruddy blotches of spark and flash-burn. There was a clatter of hobnailed boots on floorboards, an endless ‘clinking’ as wages changed hands. Roars of laughter rose to the brown-stained ceiling; on one hand English miners called shame on Big Alex McDonald for siding with the Tory peer Elcho, while the Scots and Irish defended their leader’s drive for safety in the pits. By normal standards, it was good-natured, though as always there was pushing and shoving. Here and there, a woman might appear, shawled and nervous and peeping around shyly for the husband she hadn’t been able to waylay on the door; the resulting fracas when she found him only added to the general fray.

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