Darkness Demands Part 15

Elizabeth continued circling the island. Her energy seemed inexhaustible. She'd bounded in from school, the bandages trailing to her knees. They were grubby enough to be nearer to black than white. John had removed them, leaving only the sticking plaster on her chin like some funny little goatee. As always, Elizabeth had been full of news. She'd told him over juice and chocolate chip cookies that a child had been murdered in the village. He'd already caught that on the lunch-time news when he'd returned from calling on old Stan Price. That probably accounted for the wail of sirens the previous evening. He gathered it was one of those sordid domestic incidents. A guy had murdered the child of his ex-lover in revenge for being dumped. Thank G.o.d the b.a.s.t.a.r.d hadn't got far before the cops caught up him. With luck, the guy would rot in jail.

Typical with news that had flashed mouth-to-mouth around school the murder had been embellished with all kinds of unlikely details. It had taken John some time to divert Elizabeth's attention off the subject.

At least now she was thrashing away with the oars happily enough. She hadn't mentioned the murder in the last hour or so.

After indulging her fantasies that she was on board the sinking t.i.tanic she allowed the boat to drift while she gazed down into the water. John found himself relaxing. Here, the peace and quiet was something else. Dragonflies skimmed the water in flashes of brilliant turquoise. A kingfisher dove into the lake in search of minnows. Water dripped from the oars, sounding like notes played on some exotic musical instrument. Elizabeth hummed lightly to herself.

By now Val had emerged, freshly showered, changed into cut-offs and a T-shirt. She sat on a patio chair with a cup in her hand. John found his mind turning to squeezing a great pile of oranges then mixing the juice with crushed ice. The more he thought about the iced drink sliding down his throat, the more appealing it became. To paraphrase one old song, it was summer time and the living was easy. He looked back at Elizabeth. She still stared into the water.

He leaned sideward a little to see into the lake. He saw reflected sky, a strand or two of weed. Nothing else.

"See any fish, hon?"

He waited for a reply, only she was too mesmerized by the water.

"Elizabeth. See any fish?"

"No," she said at last. "I'm looking for Baby Bones."

2.

Ten minutes later John sat down beside Val. He asked her if she'd heard of anyone by the name of Baby Bones.

"Baby Bones?" She shrugged. "Sounds like a cartoon character to me. Why?"

"I've heard Elizabeth talking about this Baby Bones over the last couple of days. She seems obsessed with hima or it."

"Don't worry. She tends to get fixated on people or things every so often. Remember how she used to go on endlessly about the t.i.tanic?"

"It's just how she talks about this Baby Bones. She seems excited and frightened all at the same time."

"Baby Bones?" Val sipped from her cup, thinking. "Isn't that the one from the Rugrats cartoon?"

"That's Chucky, Lill, Phil, Tommy and Angelica."

She smiled. "You know your cartoon characters, Mr. Newton."

"It rubs off when you've sat through hundreds of the things when the kids watch them."

"Are you sure you're the hardworking writer that you seem to be?" Her eyes twinkled. "It sounds as if you sit in front of the cartoon channels all day."

"I wish." He smiled. "At least that way I'd know if this Baby Bones was a cartoon character or not."

"Or Elizabeth might have picked something up from a book?"

"She might," he allowed. "But I was up on the lake with her just now. She was staring down into the water and when I asked if she was looking for fish she said, no, she was looking for Baby Bones."

"She obviously gets the strange imagination from you, John."

"She told me that if you saw Baby Bones looking back at you then you would soon die."

"And you think she was genuinely frightening herself doing this?"

"As I said, it's a mixture of excitement and fear. You know." He shrugged. "The same as how she gets riding a ghost train."

"I wouldn't worry about it, John. It sounds like one of these school yard myths that children frighten each other with. You know the sort, step on a crack in the pavement and you'll die, or hold your breath when an ambulance goes by otherwise you'll catch a disease."

He nodded. "Or the plant Mother Dye. When I was a kid local legend had it that if you picked the plant your mother would die." He grinned. "Steve and I used to tease our mother no end by telling her we picked huge armfuls of the stuff."

"And as she's still alive and kicking it's obviously just another of those half-baked superst.i.tions." She leaned across and squeezed John's knee. "See, Baby Bones is just one of those stories that kids tell each other. Elizabeth'll have forgotten all about it in a few days."

"And no more Baby Bones."

"Righta now, what are we going to cook for supper, handsome? Pork chops? Steak? Quiche?"

"Quiche with salad. It's too hot to stand over a stove." He stood up, stretching. "I'll make a start on it."

"Will Paul be back to eat with us?"

"No, he's meeting some friends this evening. He said he'd make himself a sandwich later."

"I'll come and do the salad."

"No. You look bushed. I can manage."

"Come here." She touched her lips.

He kissed her.

"Thank you. You're a good man."

Smiling, he walked back into the house. Elizabeth sat cross-legged on the observation gla.s.s while gazing down into the waters rushing through the millrace below. She was lost in her own world. John, not wishing to disturb her, went into the kitchen to make a start on the meal.

3.

The evening sun sliced through the trees in the cemetery, glinting from headstones, warming the faces of stone angels. Already, shadows had begun to pour into the Vale Of Tears, filling the labyrinth of pa.s.sages with a shade so dark and so thick it looked as if liquid darkness leaked from the vaults.

Paul walked with Miranda Bloom along one of the pa.s.sageways. The walls of the crypts flanked them above head height. You couldn't see back or forward more than fifteen paces, due to the sharp turns of the pa.s.sageways. Only the roof was open to the evening air. Yet the branches of trees lidded even that.

They walked hand in hand, enjoying the silence and privacy after a day spent with a thousand students at school. Here they could be alone, say anything, do anything, knowing they wouldn't be seen or overheard.

In the shadowed gullies Miranda moved with a dreamlike beauty, her Spanish eyes glinting provocatively, her hair black as a raven's feathers spilling over one bare shoulder. Paul Newton's heart beat hard. He glanced at Miranda. She smiled and as she walked she reached out, allowing her fingertips to brush the walls and the steel doors of the crypts.

Thousands and thousands of bodies interred in those tombs, Paul told himself. Did a single one of those dead people ever feel like me? Yes, they must have. Millions of men and women must have experienced the same emotions shooting through their bodies like firea like electricitya but how come it feels as if I've discovered something completely new? Here is Miranda Bloom. In a short skirt. In a sleeveless topa come to that, a shoulderless top. All I can see are acres of smooth olive skin. She's smiling at me. We're no longer talking. Because we don't have to talk. Everything's happening through smiles, eye contact, a raise of the eyebrow. G.o.da how come her teeth are so white? It doesn't seem possible that anyone has felt like this beforea Behind iron doors lay caskets stacked one on top of the other. Layer upon layer of dead men and women stretching back a hundred and fifty years or more. They were bones now. Fleshless skulls. Lipless, bloodless. Leering mouths full of rotted teeth. Skeletons housed cobwebs and rodents' nests. But once they had hearts that must have pounded like his. Bellies with fire inside of them that burnt like almighty furnaces.

The heat shot out from the center of his stomach to his fingertips.

Once those long-skirted Victorian ladies had slipped beneath the sheets and smiled at their men-folk, flashed those come-to-bed-eyes, then sighed with pleasure as flesh met flesh, as nipples rose hard, as mouths pressed against mouths in kisses of overwhelming, superheated pa.s.sion. Electric thrills surged up his spine.

Those people in their tombs were bone dust now. But once they'd ridden that surging wave of erotic excitement he felt now.

"Nearly there," she murmured. Her hand squeezed his.

Yes, oh my G.o.d. Nearly there. To many this was a journey of just a few hundred yards from the village. For Paul Newton it was a journey of many years. Ever since he'd been twelve years old he wondered what it would be like to lie naked with a girl. Now in a few minutes timea His lips were dry. His heart thundered.

Now the pa.s.sageway broadened out. Ahead was the cliff face, through which a path ran on a rising rampway, pa.s.sing beneath a stone arch. Inscribed on that, the words: GONE TO GLORY.

Leaves sang as the breeze caught them.

Jesusa he was going to explodea he couldn't wait any longer.

"Yo!"

s.h.i.t.

Sitting on top of a wall were three teenagers. One he recognized from the school football team. "Paul Newton. My man. How's it going?"

d.a.m.n, why did they have to be here?

A weight sank through his chest into the pit of his stomach. "Not bad, Al, how are you?"

"Fair to middling. Evening, Miranda."

"Evening, Al."

The heftily built Al looked down at them, legs dangling, and the muscles clearly bulging through his jeans. The three pa.s.sed a joint between them. The other two were hitting the giggling stage. Al seemed unaffected. But then there must be a h.e.l.l of a lot of flesh to saturate with the weed before it started to tickle his brain.

"So, you've come to the scene of the crime?"

Casually, Paul shrugged, making sure he didn't arouse the three's curiosity by openly resenting their presence (and signaling as clear as horse p.i.s.s that he'd had what promised to be an evening of electrifying s.e.x shattered to friggin' smithereensa h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation). "What crime scene?"

"Murder." Al pulled on the joint. Held it for a second, then spoke using the lung full of smoke; each word appearing as a ball of blue. "There wasa a little kida murdered yesterday. Poor devil."

"We heard," Miranda said. "But it happened down in the village, not up here."

"That's true. But didn't you hear about the kid's mother?"

"No."

"She came up herea Last night." Al pulled on the joint again before pa.s.sing it on. "She hanged herself from that tree across there. But she'd mutilated herself first." He pointed. "Hands. Feet. Face. She was hanging there like a rag doll, dripping blood all over the place." Then he pointed to his face, his fingers open in a fork. "Eyes staringa just staring like she'd seen something that had terrified her."

Miranda gave a shake of her head. "You know how to decorate a story, Al. I bet you'd do a really good job with our Christmas tree."

He looked down, his lips forming a twitchy smile. "I found her, Miranda," his voice light as a whisper. "I found her hanging there. Wearing nothing but a little nightdress. Blood all over her legs." Taking the joint back in his fingers, he shook his head at it. "They don't grow stuff like they used to, Paul. This isn't having any effect." He looked across at the tree; its branch still projected out above the Vale of Tears. What was left of the rope, with a fresh cut mark at the bottom where they'd brought her down, swayed in the breeze. "She won't go away, Paul. I can still see her there. I can see her eyes." Al shook his head savagely, trying to dislodge the memory. Then, failing, he wedged the end of the joint into his mouth. He sucked so hard that the fiery tip glowed white.

4.

"I thought there'd have been some cops here," Miranda said later as they cut across the cemetery, away from where Al sat, trying to fog the memory in clouds of marijuana smoke.

Paul shook his head. "I suppose once they've removed the body and checked the area there's nothing to stay around for."

"And why didn't they take the whole rope away, not just the end with the noose? It's ghoulish."

He looked at her. Her eyes were bright in the dusk. She looked cold.

"Are you all right, Miranda?"

"Fine."

"I could walk you home?"

"No. I'm OK, Paul."

"Uh, here come the ghouls. It's show-time." He nodded down the hillside where clumps of people were moving up the hillside to where the tree with the rope stood.

"I imagine this'll become something of a tourist destination. I only hope they washed the poor woman's blood away. Come on." She took his hand. "Let's find somewhere quiet."

5.

In the thickening gloom, Stan Price looked out of the window. Hunger burned fiercely inside of him.

"Harrya Harry. Stan's a hungry boy, Harry. Bring me some of your Ma's cake. Harry?"

In the distance, the hillside cemetery swelled from the ground like a pregnant belly.