“Finely argued, lady.”
For the next five minutes as they crossed the fields Titreano went through a series of alterations. Genevieve and Louise kept up a stream of suggestions, arguing hotly, and explaining textures and styles to their mildly befuddled companion. When they finished he was dressed in the fashion of a young estate manager, with fawn cord trousers, calf-length boots, a tweed jacket, check shirt, and grey cap.
“Just right,” Louise declared.
“I thank you, lady.” He doffed his cap and bowed low.
Genevieve clapped delightedly.
Louise stopped at another of the interminable walls and found a gap in the stone to shove her boot toe in. Straddling the top of the wall she could see the aerodrome’s perimeter fence two hundred yards away. “Almost there,” she told the others cheerfully.
The Bytham aerodrome appeared to be deserted. Both hangars were closed up; nobody was in the control tower. Away on the other side of the mown field the row of seven cottages used by station personnel were silent and dark.
The only sound was the persistent clang of the church bell in the village. It hadn’t stopped ringing the whole time they had walked across the fields.
Louise peered around the side of the first hangar, clutching at the shotgun. Nothing moved. A couple of tractors and a farm ranger were parked outside a small access door. “Are there any possessed here?” she whispered to Titreano.
“No,” he whispered back.
“What about normal people?”
His brown face creased in concentration. “Several. I hear them over in yon houses. Five or six are malingering inside this second barn.”
“Hangar,” Louise corrected. “We call them hangars nowadays.”
“Yes, lady.”
“Sorry.”
They swapped a nervous grin.
“I suppose we’d better go and see them, then,” she said. “Come here, Gen.” She pointed the shotgun at the ground and took her sister’s hand as they walked towards the second hangar.
She really wished Carmitha hadn’t given her the weapon. Yet at the same time it imbued her with an uncommon sense of confidence. Even though she doubted she could ever actually fire it at anyone.
“They have seen us,” Titreano said quietly.
Louise scanned the corrugated panel wall of the hangar. A narrow line of windows ran the entire length. She thought she saw a shiver of motion behind one. “Hello?” she called loudly.
There was no reply.
She walked right up to the door and knocked firmly. “Hello, can you hear me?” She tried the handle, only to discover it was locked.
“Now what?” she asked Titreano.
“Hey!” Genevieve shouted at the door. “I’m hungry.”
The handle turned, and the door opened a crack. “Who the hell are you people?” a man asked.
Louise drew herself up as best she could manage, knowing full well what she must look like to anyone inside. “I am Louise Kavanagh, the heir of Cricklade, this is my sister Genevieve, and William Elphinstone, one of our estate managers.”
Genevieve opened her mouth to protest, but Louise nudged her with a toe.
“Oh, really?” came the answer from behind the door.
“Yes!”
“It is her,” said another, deeper voice. The door opened wide to show two men gazing out at them. “I recognize her. I used to work at Cricklade.”
“Thank you,” Louise said.
“Until your father fired me.”
Louise didn’t know whether to burst into tears or just shoot him on the spot.
“Let them in, Duggen,” a woman called. “The little girl looks exhausted. And this is no day to settle old grudges.”
Duggen shrugged and moved aside.
A line of dusty windows was the sole source of illumination inside. The aeroambulance was a hulking dark presence in the middle of the concrete floor. Three people were standing below the plane’s narrow, pointed nose; the woman who had spoken, and a pair of five-year-old twin girls. She introduced herself as Felicia Cantrell, her daughters were Ellen and Tammy; her husband Ivan was an aeroambulance pilot, the man who had opened the door. “And Duggen you already know, or at least he knows you.”
Ivan Cantrell took a vigilant look out of the hangar door before closing it. “So would you like to tell us what you’re doing here, Louise? And what happened to you?”
It took her over fifteen minutes to produce a patched-up explanation which satisfied them. All the time guarding her tongue from uttering the word possession, and mentioning who Titreano really was. As she realized, those two items would have got her ejected from the hangar in no time at all. Yet at the same time she was pleased with her white lies; the Louise who had woken to a normal world yesterday would have just blurted the truth and imperiously demanded they do something about it. This must be growing up, after a fashion.
“The Land Union with modern energy weapons?” Duggen mused sceptically when she was finished.
“I think so,” Louise said. “That’s what everyone said.”
He looked as if he was about to object when Genevieve said: “Listen.”
Louise couldn’t hear a thing. “What?” she asked.
“The church bells, they’ve stopped.”
Duggen and Ivan went over to the windows and looked out.
“Are they coming?” Louise mouthed to Titreano.
He nodded his head surreptitiously.
“Please,” she appealed to Ivan. “You have to fly us out of here.”
“I don’t know about that, Miss Kavanagh. I don’t have the authority. And we don’t really know what’s happening in the village. Perhaps I ought to check with the constable first.”
“Please! If you’re worried about your job, don’t be. My family will protect you.”