Big, black, metal gates. Not decorative gates, but gates with bars more than an inch thick, and with spear-prongs on top. Gates designed to keep you out. White security lights pooling the turning circle in front of them.
The Renault was stopped outside them with its engine running and its headlights on full, and its horn was blasting, an unbelievable noise down here in the woods.
What was more unbelievable was that this was adults, in the old-fashioned sense: staid middle-aged people. It was kind of shocking. And, sooner or later, it was going to have to get a reaction.
It was cooler now, in the hours before dawn. Jane, in her old fleece jacket, was hunched down by some rhododendrons about ten yards behind the Renault. She’d got Eirion to drop her at the end of the drive and she’d walked down through the trees while he’d gone to find a place to park the BMW — so it would be ready for a fast getaway, he said; also so it wouldn’t be damaged in the event of-
— whatever happened.
Jane couldn’t blame Eirion for being cautious; he was in enough trouble, domestically. And anyway she wasn’t in any mood to blame him for anything tonight. Right now, stocky, solid Eirion was very OK; Jane still carried that warm glow, warmer than the fleece, and her body felt different, felt stronger; felt like a complete unit — though maybe the unit now was her and Eirion: an item, official. Yeah, OK, cool. It felt like the start of a journey. Scott Eagles and Sigourney Jones? Had it come to this?
‘STOP THAT NOW!’
This guy was inside the gates, on the edge of the area floodlit by the headlamps — big guy in a leather jacket and jeans.
The horn stopped, though Jane could still hear it in her head, so the silence was kind of shattering. Mr Shelbone got out and stood next to the Renault, staying behind the headlights, a long silhouette.
‘I want to speak to Allan Henry.’ His voice sounded harsh and fractured, the way cardboardy voices did when they were raised.
‘We’ve got an office,’ the guy in the leather jacket said. ‘You can phone in the morning and ask for an appointment like anyone else. Now go away.’
‘You tell Allan Henry I want to see him now. Tell him it’s Shelbone.’
‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘Tell him if he doesn’t come out, I shall stay here all night, blowing my horn.’
‘You won’t, you know. Because if you aren’t away from here in two minutes, I’m calling the police.’
‘And you are?’
‘The gardener. Don’t you even know it’s illegal to sound a car horn after dusk? Now get back in your car and get out of here, before I get annoyed.’
Oh yeah, he really looked like a gardener. The kind of gardener who planted people.
Mr Shelbone got back into his car, like he’d been told — and just leaned on the horn again. It filled the night like a wild siren. Jane felt a little scared. If this was a bunch of kids, like drunk or stoned, it wouldn’t mean a lot, but these were quiet, suburban, middle-aged, extremely Christian people, and they believed this man and his stepdaughter had somehow taken away their precious child.
And Jane was now inclined to believe this, too, though it didn’t make any proper sense. It was one thing for Layla Riddock to be very turned-on by the idea of real communication with the spirit of Amy’s murdered mother, something else entirely to kidnap the kid. And bring her here, thus connecting Allan Henry to it?
An arm around her waist. She screamed.
‘Ssssh.’
‘Irene!’
‘Not so loud, cariad.’ He pulled her down into the rhododendrons.
‘Cariad?’
‘Welsh term of endearment. What’s happening?’
‘I know that. They’re demanding to talk to Allan Henry. That guy claims to be the gardener, would you believe? Where’ve you left the car?’
‘There’s a little clearing about thirty yards back. I turned it round and tucked it under some trees.’ She had the feeling that now he was sure Gwennan’s car was safely off the road he was almost enjoying this. ‘He’s breaking the law, making that noise. He drove here like he was on his driving test, and now-’
‘He knows. The gardener guy’s threatened to call the police. Shelbone’s just ignored him.’
‘Maybe he wants them to call the police. Maybe he realizes that if he went to the police himself and asked them to start questioning this Allan Henry’s daughter about the disappearance of his kid, it would be quite a long time before they even took him seriously.’
‘Yeah,’ Jane said. ‘That’s good thinking, Welshman.’
‘But if Henry does know where that kid is, getting the police up here’s going to be the last thing he’ll want.’
The gardener guy was no longer visible. Maybe he was taking instructions on the phone. Shelbone was still blasting away on his horn.
‘He’s even beginning to annoy me,’ Eirion said.
Jane became aware of a small gate, set into one of the big gates — became aware of it because it opened, and the guy in the leather jacket came through and walked around to the driver’s door of the Renault.
‘Open the window!’
No reaction. The horn went on blaring. You could just make out the Shelbones — heads and shoulders front-facing, neither of them moving. You felt they ought to have placards in the windscreen: Save our Child. They were a little crazy.
‘Open it!’
No movement inside the car. The guy in the leather jacket swung an arm and stepped back. There was a faintly sickening snapping sound.
‘Jesus,’ Jane whispered.
‘He’s smashed the wing mirror.’ Eirion’s arm tightened round her waist. ‘I can’t believe he did that.’
‘Open the window,’ the guy said, almost conversationally, like he was into his stride now.
Shelbone revved the engine a little but stayed on the horn. The guy’s arm went back again; there was a glint of moonlit metal.
‘Bloody hell, Jane, he’s got some kind of big wrench.’
The arm came down fast and there was this massive crunch.
‘Oh my God, Irene, he can’t-!’
The gardener had begun smashing in the driver’s door and the side panels, his arm pumping with a deliberate, workman-like savagery, which reminded Jane of those disgusting clips of the bastards beating baby seals to death. The whole car was rocking with each blow, the horn intermittent now, fractured beeps, Mrs Shelbone screaming, the woods echoing to a scrap-yard symphony of violence.
Eirion let go of Jane. ‘We can’t just stand and watch this.’ He pulled out his phone, thrust it at her. ‘Call the cops.’ He stepped out of the bushes.
‘No!’ Jane grabbed his arm. She’d seen lights coming on, some way behind the gates. ‘Wait.’
The guy in the leather jacket backed away from the car as both metal gates started to swing back.
Then this man in a check shirt and jeans strolled coolly out, making these casual but authoritative side-to-side wiping movements with his hands until the gardener guy and his wrecking tool went back into the shadows.
And the man just stood there, waiting — until the horn stopped, and Mr Shelbone’s door began to open with this really horrible rending noise. The man didn’t move, didn’t wince. Mr Shelbone got out, unsteadily — kind of top-heavy like a wall-flower that had come unstaked.
‘It’s David Shelbone, isn’t it?’ The man was talking like this was a cocktail party. ‘From the Planning Department.’
Mrs Shelbone shouted, ‘David, don’t go near-’ But the rest was muffled by Mr Shelbone slamming the car door and taking a step towards the casual guy, who just stood between the headlight beams, his arms by his sides.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was going to say I’d be surprised if this were an official visit, Mr Shelbone, at one in the morning. But then, on reflection, I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised at anything you did.’
Shelbone was breathing hard, ‘Where is she, Henry?’
‘What? Who? What are you talking about? This your idea of a night out, is it, Shelbone? Taking a tour of historic buildings in the moonlight to make sure nobody’s replaced any slates with the wrong colour-’
‘Tell me where she is.’
Allan Henry stood with his legs apart. He wasn’t the puffy, bloated tycoon-figure Jane had imagined. He looked quite young from here. He looked fit — a lot fitter than Mr Shelbone.
‘So what’ve you got against me, David? It’s just your name keeps cropping up time and time again. Everything I do to bring new business into this town, improve the local economy, create jobs — you’re there trying to sabotage it. I don’t understand — it’s just you, every time. A reactionary little man, a deluded loner with a grudge. Nobody at the council can figure you out. What’s the problem? What’s the matter with you?’
‘You and your thugs!’ Mrs Shelbone was out of the car, now, a big, bulky woman, arms flailing. ‘You can have your thugs destroy our car, but you won’t intimidate us, with the… with the Lord Jesus Christ on our side!’
‘Destroy your car?’ Allan Henry looked for a moment like he was going to laugh but in fact, Jane thought, his expression had turned suddenly menacing. ‘Thugs? You arrive at my private residence at one in the morning in a car that’s either been in an accident or been… quite deliberately damaged by you and your husband and you wake everyone up — to accuse me and my gardener-’
‘You-’ Mr Shelbone stabbed a quivering finger at him. ‘You’re filth. God will punish you!’
‘Ah, you’re a sad and a sick old man, David Shelbone,’ Allan Henry said, almost lazily. ‘You should be having treatment. You should be on medication.’
‘It’s you that’s made my husband ill!’ Mrs Shelbone shrieked. ‘And you’ve turned our daughter… You and that… witch.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Allan Henry turned on Mrs Shelbone. ‘That’s something else, isn’t it? I had a silly little woman vicar here allegedly investigating some ludicrous allegations against my stepdaughter. I might have known where all that came from.’
Jane began to quiver. Eirion put a hand over her mouth. ‘Save it,’ he whispered. ‘Just remember everything that’s said. You’re a witness.’
She thought she caught a movement behind Allan Henry, a figure flitting like a moth. Eirion took his hand away.
‘You…’ David Shelbone’s rigidly pointing arm began to shake suddenly. God, Jane thought, what if he has a heart attack? ‘You tell me… where you’ve got’ — his voice rose to a howl of helpless anguish — ‘GOT MY DAUGHTER!’
And suddenly Allan Henry was losing it. ‘Shelbone!’ Advancing through the gate in the illumination from the headlights. ‘What would I want with your fucking daughter? Truth is, you and this mad old bat should never have been allowed to adopt that child, and if she’s run away, then you’ve driven her away. We-’
He half turned as headlights appeared behind him. There was the mean, throaty snarl of a powerful engine, and then the lights were full in Jane’s eyes.
‘It’s coming out!’ Eirion yelled. He started to drag her back into the rhododendrons.
Jane heard Mrs Shelbone scream, saw the woman throwing herself in panic across the bonnet of the Renault as the yellow car came through the gates. There was a vicious scraping of metal on metal, a small splintering crunch as it tore a tail light from the Renault and spun off into the bushes, no more than a foot from Jane’s legs, to get past and back onto the drive. She heard tyres spinning and then the wheels hit the tarmac, skidding, and the car took off into the night, and Jane yelled,
‘Layla!’
Eirion was frantic. ‘You OK? Jane? Jane!’ Feverishly pushing foliage aside, like he might find both her legs severed at the thighs.
‘That was Layla Riddock!’ Jane cried. ‘Where’s the car? Get after her!’ Her legs worked. She began to run back up the drive. ‘Come on!’
‘What?’
‘Please, Irene, go, go, go — go!’
Nice idea. Quick thinking in the circs. Except that when the BMW reached the lane, there was no sign of the yellow car. She could have gone either way, either left towards Dilwyn or right to Hereford. Jane was sobbing in frustration, scanning the horizon for tail lights, but the horizon was no more than five yards away, here: high hedges either side of the twisty road.
‘Right! Irene, go right!’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, but we’ve got to try something. It just seems more likely. Just do it.’
‘Call the police.’ Eirion was poised at the junction, holding the car on the clutch. ‘The phone’s on the dash. Dial 999.’
‘And tell them what?’
‘Tell them there’s a disturbance at Allan Henry’s. Tell them you’re a neighbour and you heard crashing and screams.’
‘There aren’t any neighbours. Please, Irene, go — go!’
‘Call the police! And if you really want to help the Shelbones, give the cops our names as witnesses.’
‘Oh, all right!’ Jane stabbed at the phone, and Eirion sent Gwennan’s car racing towards Hereford, Jane half hoping that after a couple of hundred yards they’d find the yellow sports car upended in some ditch.
‘Emergency — which service?’
‘Police.’
Eirion made pained noises as Jane described the sounds of what could have been a massacre coming from the Henry spread, and then conveniently got cut off.
‘Why the hell did you-?’
‘Just keep going, Irene.’
‘Why? What’s the point?’
‘Haven’t you figured this out yet?’
‘Forgive me, I’m Welsh.’
‘She’s got the kid in the car,’ Jane said. ‘She’s got Amy.’
Merrily was breathing again. In the confining darkness of Lol’s car, they’d approached the absurd, cornered the chimera… been able to talk about something that otherwise might have remained undiscussed, possibly for ever, putting a permanent distance between them — a gap that might never have been crossed.
Now, she was feeling closer to Lol than she had to anyone except for Jane, Sophie sometimes and — curiously — Gomer Parry, since first coming to Ledwardine and taking on this impossible job and discovering that the people she could trust to try and understand her were all too few.
Ironically, Lol remained unconvinced about the threat posed by Layla Riddock — maybe because, without her, they wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have reached this level of communication.
‘She’s seventeen,’ he said as they neared Canon Pyon. ‘She’s just a rich girl with a hobby.’
‘However,’ she reminded him, ‘she clearly believes that being half-gypsy gives her access, a power base.’
‘Imaginary power base.’
‘And she’s now got remarkable influence over one of the richest developers in the county.’
‘It happens.’
‘Taking over his house, his bed? From her own mother?’
‘She’s a young girl, he’s a rich middle-aged man,’ Lol said sadly. ‘The gypsy magic could be entirely superfluous.’
‘And the fact that she’s also assuming responsibility for conserving and regenerating his finances? And somehow being allowed to?’
‘It’s not a fact, though, is it?’ Lol said. ‘It’s only what she thinks. He scatters her mystical charms and talismans around, it keeps her sweet. He doesn’t believe any of it, and they both know it won’t last.’
‘Maybe.’ She watched Lol driving, the slit-eyed alien on his sweatshirt lit green by the dashlights. The mature woman’s dream: a nice-looking man who, targeted by a young girl, any young girl, could be firmly relied on to run like hell. ‘So, what about the persecution of the Shelbones? It starts as a game, becomes a serious fixation for the persecutor as well as for the principal victim. And it’s working.’
‘Why is it working?’
‘It just does,’ Merrily said.
‘Black magic just works?’
‘In the short term, it works. People who go down that road find they can get what they want very quickly. Then it starts to mess them up and they can’t get out. I’m not being metaphysical here. Pure, calculated evil works, short-term, because it nearly always takes us by surprise. We’re not conditioned to turn the corner and meet the man with the knife.’
‘And what happens when we are conditioned?’
‘Then maybe we also start to carry knives,’ Merrily said miserably. ‘Then it gets ugly. Hang on, Lol, I think we’ve just passed the turning.’
She’d spotted a man standing by the roadside, smoking a cigarette.
Lol pulled in and reversed. The man threw down his cigarette and stamped on it. The Astra drew level with him. Merrily wound down her window.
‘Good morning, Reverend Watkins,’ Allan Henry said wearily.
On the edge of the Holmer industrial estate, at the top of Hereford, there were temporary traffic lights. They took for ever to change. There was already a great wide Dutch container lorry waiting at the lights.
‘Mum was right after all,’ Jane said. ‘There is a God.’
Behind the container lorry, its headlights full on, was a chrome-yellow Mazda sports car. Its driver kept revving impatiently. It was clear that if it hadn’t been for the Dutch lorry, this particular driver would have shot the lights.
‘Just as I was convinced we’d got it wrong and Layla had just kindly taken her home to Dilwyn,’ Jane said.
‘We’d got it wrong?’
‘Just don’t lose the slag.’
Eirion said nothing. This was not such a happy development for him, evidently.
Over the old city, the moon was very bright. You could see right across to the hills and Wales beyond. Jane didn’t think she’d ever felt so wide awake.