The Magdalena Curse (3 page)
Read The Magdalena Curse Online
Authors: F.G. Cottam
Hunter poured himself an inch of whisky. It was the single malt, Oban, she saw from the label, paler than any blend Elizabeth was familiar with, even in the firelight in front of which they sat. She was not a whisky drinker herself. But she had once been very close to someone who was. He raised the glass. The liquor had an oily sheen and moved with an almost viscous laziness as he swirled it in front of his face. She could smell the whisky and she could smell the resin from the pine logs burning in the grate. And there was something else, some rather more esoteric scent she could not place. Perhaps Mark Hunter wore cologne. Military men could be as vain as peacocks. It would not require premeditation to dab on a bit of scent. Quite the opposite, if it was his general habit.
‘A psychiatrist.’
‘A brilliant man. A compassionate man, also.’
Hunter nodded. He downed his drink. He stood and went
across to an oak chest positioned against the far wall and took some items from a drawer there. They chinked when he put them on the top of the chest. Then he scooped them up and brought them back and they fell from his hands on to their little shared table. She saw his Military Cross and his George Cross on their crisp coloured ribbons. So it was true. He was a hero. There was a medal with the citation scored in French. There was another with an American eagle impressed on the polished bronze. He sat heavily back in his chair and gestured at the decorations.
across to an oak chest positioned against the far wall and took some items from a drawer there. They chinked when he put them on the top of the chest. Then he scooped them up and brought them back and they fell from his hands on to their little shared table. She saw his Military Cross and his George Cross on their crisp coloured ribbons. So it was true. He was a hero. There was a medal with the citation scored in French. There was another with an American eagle impressed on the polished bronze. He sat heavily back in his chair and gestured at the decorations.
‘Baubles,’ he said.
She wondered, was it the whisky talking? She did not think it was. A man with his background would have a good head for the stuff. Discretion had been the basic prerequisite of his entire military career. Drink might have made him more open to her, less inhibited. But the margin would be slight.
‘I have lost my wife and daughter. If I lose my son, my life amounts to the trinkets on that table. Do you know the line from Eliot, Elizabeth?’
She believed she did. It came from
The Waste Land
. It was the famous line about shoring fragments against one’s ruins in a bleak attempt at some sort of consolation. She quoted it. Hunter listened as she did so and then sighed.
The Waste Land
. It was the famous line about shoring fragments against one’s ruins in a bleak attempt at some sort of consolation. She quoted it. Hunter listened as she did so and then sighed.
‘Well. These fragments are not enough. I want my boy to have his chance at life. He is my legacy and my gift to the world and my gift to him is his chance at living. I will not willingly have him denied it. Do you understand?’
He was crying. He was doing so silently. But the tears tracked glistening down his face in the orange cast of the firelight.
‘You said you had something to tell me.’
He sniffed. ‘Adam is possessed. He is the victim of a curse. I incurred it twelve years ago in Bolivia. It was pledged that
my progeny would commune with the dead. The hag who cursed me was doubly right, in the event. But I don’t think she was thinking of my wife and daughter. I think she was referring to this. And of course it has come to pass.’
my progeny would commune with the dead. The hag who cursed me was doubly right, in the event. But I don’t think she was thinking of my wife and daughter. I think she was referring to this. And of course it has come to pass.’
Whatever large beast capered outside, it had not left the vicinity of the house. Elizabeth heard the rough smear of its hide on stone again, the scrape of horn on the leaded window glass. There was a snort, or whinny. There was the drag and clatter of heavy hooves.
‘Do you think there is anything you can do?’
‘There was white as well as black magic in that place. A kind of conflict was being waged there.’
‘You actually believe this?’
‘I saw it. There was a white witch. She was old and very powerful. She could help me. She could help Adam, if I could find her.’
‘Twelve years, Mark. She was old then. She could be dead.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘If she was dead, this wouldn’t be happening. This is her ordeal, her test. That was how it was always meant to be played out. I see that now. And if I’m to save my son I have to find her.’
Elizabeth looked at the medals on the little table between them. They shared space with the bottle of Oban and the two glasses, one used, one still free of whisky’s happy contamination. The medals looked like nothing in the dull light of the fire. But she had seen combat and its aftermath. She knew something of the courage and selflessness they must have taken to earn. Fuck it, she said to herself. She poured an inch and drank it down in a gulp. ‘Would you not consider the psychiatrist, Mark? At my sincere request? Would you not have someone qualified examine the boy’s computer files?’
He smiled, but not at her. The thing outside blundered against the door. Hinges strained and the mortise clacked
loudly, but Mark ignored it. Elizabeth decided that she would too. She suspected that Mark Hunter had a large gun somewhere for use against threats like the one perhaps posed by whatever was lurking in his grounds. The metal hoard on the table told her he would use his gun coolly and well. Whatever the thing outside was, it posed no threat to Hunter and his son. Whatever slouched out there was too big and too solid a target.
loudly, but Mark ignored it. Elizabeth decided that she would too. She suspected that Mark Hunter had a large gun somewhere for use against threats like the one perhaps posed by whatever was lurking in his grounds. The metal hoard on the table told her he would use his gun coolly and well. Whatever the thing outside was, it posed no threat to Hunter and his son. Whatever slouched out there was too big and too solid a target.
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘Do you not wonder what that smell is, Elizabeth?’
The scent she had detected earlier had grown much stronger and more prevalent. It drowned the odour of the whisky and the fire. It was not the vain colonel’s cologne, unless he had spilled a bottle of the stuff.
‘It’s frankincense,’ Hunter said. ‘It smells of fresh pine and lemons, does it not?’
Elizabeth nodded. It did. Richly and intensely so.
‘It comes from the country in Africa we now call Somalia. It was popular in the Eastern world at the time of the birth of Christ. It was brought back to Europe by the Templars, after the First Crusade. Western Christians waited a thousand years to smell the stuff brought as a gift to the Nazareth stable by one of the three attendant kings. I believe its source in my house tonight is the room occupied by my son. And I can promise you, its presence here has nothing to do with the hard drive of his computer.’
She stayed the night. The mist did not dissipate and she was too unnerved to risk the road. The spare bedroom was warm and comfortable and the rest of the night passed without incident. The smell of incense was weakening even as she brushed her teeth and in the morning was entirely gone. So was the fog. She enjoyed a stroke of luck when she saw the message light on her phone flashing and discovered her first appointment of the day, a meeting with a
pharmaceuticals company rep, had been cancelled. It gave her the opportunity to have a chat with her patient before she was obliged to leave the house.
pharmaceuticals company rep, had been cancelled. It gave her the opportunity to have a chat with her patient before she was obliged to leave the house.
She found him at the table in the sitting room, still in his pyjamas. He had his elbows on the table and his head rested in his hands. He was frowning, staring at the pieces on the chessboard left from the unfinished game of the previous night. His father was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. He was humming something tunelessly. It occurred to her that once upon a time, Mark Hunter had probably been a happy sort of man. She pulled out a chair and sat beside Adam.
‘Do you ever beat him?’
‘Occasionally. When he lets me.’
‘When he’s in a good mood?’
‘When he thinks I need the encouragement of a win to keep on playing. But I can tell he’s losing on purpose, even when he pretends he’s struggling. My dad’s a really crappy actor.’
She laughed.
He smiled at her. ‘Sorry. I’m not supposed to say crappy. I meant to say Dad’s a really lousy actor.’
‘Tea or coffee?’ Hunter shouted from the kitchen.
‘Coffee, please.’
‘A Coke for me, Dad.’
‘In your dreams.’
Adam turned to her. ‘What is wrong with me, doctor? My dad doesn’t seem to know and he usually knows everything.’
She paused before replying. ‘Did you dream last night? Do you remember your dream?’
He frowned. ‘I dreamed something was trying to get into our house in the darkness. It was a wild animal. It was a wolf, I think. But it was massive, the size of a horse.’
‘That was the only dream?’
‘It was the only one I remember.’
‘If I say the word “sleep” to you, what does that make you think of?’
The frown had not lifted from his face. ‘Dust,’ he said. ‘Darkness.’
‘I will do everything I can to make you well, Adam. I promise you that.’
The frown lifted. He nodded and smiled at her. But she was aware that she had not answered the question he had asked her. And she could see that he was too.
As soon as she got into the surgery, she emailed the Edinburgh man. She outlined the principal details of the case. He called her back within half an hour. It was Wednesday. He agreed to come and see Adam the following Tuesday. She called Mark Hunter to tell him. He did not seem thrilled by the development. She thought that was natural. In resorting to a succession of strangers to tend to his son, it must seem to him as though Adam and his problems were becoming remote from him. In a loving father, that would not be a pleasant notion. But he was intelligent and had been disciplined all his professional life. He needed to be objective if his son was to be helped. As their short conversation drew to its conclusion, a thought occurred to her.
‘When was the last time you went out, Mark?’
‘I took Adam to see the military tattoo in Edinburgh.’
‘That was months ago. When was the last time you went out as a grown-up?’
He laughed. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Make plans for Friday night. I’ll babysit. Go and have an adult conversation in the pub. Grumble about the weather with someone gnarled and local. Have a few beers. It will do you the world of good.’
‘What about your plans for Friday night?’
‘They’re already sorted. I’m babysitting.’ She hung up.
If nothing happens to Adam between now and then.
That had been the unspoken proviso, the precondition that neither of them alluded to, the possibility she knew both of them feared. She prayed that all would remain as it was until Tuesday and the psychiatrist. She felt that once he saw Adam, once he made his sane and fastidious suggestions concerning treatment, all would start to become well. Everything would begin to return to normal. An episode prior to that could be disastrous. It could send Hunter off on his desperate quest to find an ancient witch. What would happen to Adam in his absence? He would be obliged to take the boy with him. But Adam needed calm and comfort and routine, not the chaos of a futile search for some sorceress crone through the empty regions of Latin America.
She thought again about the house. They had lived in a village in Sussex. Then one wintry morning the previous January, the accident had occurred. Lillian Hunter was walking her eight-year-old daughter Kate the half mile to the church hall where her weekly ballet class was held. The car that hit them was being driven too fast on an icy road by a local youth of seventeen who had passed his test only two weeks earlier. The collision happened after his car hit a patch of black ice and went out of control. Lillian and Kate were killed instantly. It was the sort of mundane catastrophe you read about and sighed and shook your head over in the papers in the winter months. And as a consequence, Hunter had left the army and sold up and headed north with his son to escape the past and start afresh without the reminders that would hinder their recovery.
There was nothing wrong with the house. It was isolated, but it was not of itself a sinister or morbid place. It was handsome, picturesque. And in the spring and summer its surrounding countryside was spectacular. Buying it, relocating, was probably the right thing for Hunter in distracting him from his loss. But for Adam? Elizabeth couldn’t help
wondering at the emotional cost of taking him away from everything familiar to him at such a distressing time. That was a parental dilemma, though, wasn’t it? Who was she to judge? She did not have any children of her own. At thirty-four she was certainly young enough. But the calendar was not the whole story. She did not think it likely to happen now. She picked up her pen and scribbled a note to herself to talk to the headmistress at Adam’s school. She was Mrs Blyth’s GP. It would be easy enough to do. Bullying should have occurred to her as a possible cause of Adam’s problems much sooner than this. But at least she could establish whether there had been any bullying before Tuesday’s consultation.
wondering at the emotional cost of taking him away from everything familiar to him at such a distressing time. That was a parental dilemma, though, wasn’t it? Who was she to judge? She did not have any children of her own. At thirty-four she was certainly young enough. But the calendar was not the whole story. She did not think it likely to happen now. She picked up her pen and scribbled a note to herself to talk to the headmistress at Adam’s school. She was Mrs Blyth’s GP. It would be easy enough to do. Bullying should have occurred to her as a possible cause of Adam’s problems much sooner than this. But at least she could establish whether there had been any bullying before Tuesday’s consultation.
The first two hours of her Friday evening child-minding stint passed uneventfully. Then she heard a rumple of sound from above as though Adam had shifted and woken. She stood to go and check on him, alert to further sound, but there was none. A feeling of dread overcame her then. There was nothing obvious to provoke it. But her skin pricked into gooseflesh and her scalp itched coldly, and it took all the willpower and resolution she possessed to make her legs climb the stairs to Adam’s snug little room.
She pushed open the door. Moonlight bathed the scene. It was monochromatic, bleeding the brightness from the pictures on the wall, making a drab shroud of the duvet cover on the bed, turning the water in his bedside carafe a gloomy tainted colour.
He was seated upright on the bed. His mouth was stretched in a pantomimic leer. His long hair had been twisted into two careful plaits and there was a look of cunning and wariness in his eyes so dismaying on the face of a ten-year-old child that her own hand rose to cover her open mouth at the shock of it.
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