Unholy Rites (29 page)

“Mr. Clough had me helping put up stalls by the station. I'd taken a break when you saw me with Stephen. He spent Friday night with me at the Cloughs, and we talked about the Grand Master then, see, and on Saturday we worked out a plan. So after the obstacle races, I ducked out to see the Grand Master. I told him I'd fetch Stephen during the torchlight procession and we'd meet him at the rock.”

“And did you?” Danutia asked, waiting for him to confirm her theory.

Eric's scowl deepened. “No, I screwed up. I was supposed to collect the fuckin' winnin' duck from the river, and I was too late. I knew Mrs. Clough would be fried, so I did a bunk. I meant to hide out till night time and carry on with the plan, but Dad was turning onto the road and saw me. Said Mum was being a bitch and it was time we were both out of there. He needed to see a man in Manchester, he said, and I might as well go along. I told him I didn't want to, but then he got mad, said he'd run me over if I didn't shut up and get in. So I did. I figured Stephen would be too scared to meet the Grand Master by himself. But I was wrong.”

“We don't know yet exactly what happened,” Danutia said. No one had considered that Stephen might have gone off of his own free will, just as Eric had. “Did Stephen seem scared about meeting the Grand Master?”

“No, he was all excited. I didn't tell him about killing a sheep. I just told him that the Grand Master wanted to look into his heart to see if he had the makings of an Acolyte, and if he did, he'd get to light candles and say magic spells. He likes that sort of stuff, see.”

Some things didn't add up. “If he just wanted to talk to Stephen, why is he keeping him hostage?”

Cellophane crackled as Eric wadded up the sheets that had been lying in his lap. “I've been thinking about that,” he said. “The sheep killing is at the dark of the moon. Maybe the Grand Master thought Stephen wouldn't come back, so he's keeping him till then, teaching him the ritual and stuff.”

“Did you hear that, Kevin?” Danutia said. “When's the next new moon?”

“I'll radio the station and find out,” Kevin said, and the radio crackled to life.

“There's something else,” Eric said, squeezing the cellophane into a tiny ball. “I'm too old for him. His son was younger, more like Stephen's age, and he was blond. I think he wants Stephen for a son.”

Kevin signed off. “New moon is tomorrow, the sixth.”

A day's grace? Only if Eric was right and Cameron Roberts's intentions as innocent as the boy believed. Roberts could have tricked him into betraying his brother. To a twisted mind, the death of another boy might seem the only fitting sacrifice to the memory of his son.

Soon Kevin turned off the A6 onto a narrow two-lane road that took them through Peak Dale, dry stone walls scarcely inches away. Danutia breathed in the scent of grass and peat and sheep droppings, then drew back as twigs from a prickly shrub whipped across her exposed arm, drawing blood. She was searching for a tissue when Eric said, “I didn't do it, you know.”

Danutia turned her attention to him. “Didn't do what?”

Eric was staring at his dirty white runners. “Cut your brake line. I know you think I did, but I didn't.”

“Do you know who did?”

“We were working near the station that afternoon and I went to take a crap. I saw somebody hanging around your car. But it was a long way away. I couldn't tell who it was.”

“Why didn't you mention it?”

“Who would have believed me?”

“True enough. Something tells me there was more to it than that. You thought it might be the Grand Master, didn't you?”

Eric didn't answer. He didn't have to.

The car slowed as they passed scattered stone houses and barns and a church sitting back from the road. A Forester was parked along the road ahead, Hugh Clough's Forester, a Mountain Rescue decal visible on its back bumper. Of course, who would be closer?

As Kevin pulled up, Clough shouldered a backpack and strode towards them.

“Out you go,” Danutia said when Kevin had opened their doors. “You want to find Stephen, don't you?”

Reluctantly Eric climbed out. Danutia watched as Clough registered the absence of handcuffs. His face relaxed and he raised a hand in greeting. “You came back of your own free will,” he said. “I knew you would.”

Eric's head dropped and he kicked at the ground with his soiled runner. “I'm sorry for worrying you, Mr. Clough.”

“Let's get moving,” Kevin said. “You two can sort yourselves out later.”

Clough set off at a rapid pace, Eric beside him, pointing and gesticulating, Danutia scrambling to keep up. The footpath led past a cottage and down a slope covered with scrub to a muddy footpath along the River Wye. Across the narrow gorge rose the forbidding limestone cliffs of Chee Tor, with ash trees crowding the base and clinging to the sides.

“Right, lad,” Kevin said. “It's up to you now. How do we find this bloke you call the Grand Master?”

Danutia felt her palms turn sweaty at the thought of scaling the cliffs. Last fall she had conquered her fear of heights long enough to retrieve an important piece of evidence from the steep bank of Sitting Lady Falls. Chee Tor was three times the height and much more formidable, great slabs of limestone with overhangs and sharp edges.

“Around the side, that way,” Eric said, pointing downstream. “About halfway up the hill there's a tunnel into a big cave. That's where he does the rituals.”

Danutia tried to shut out the image of a small, frightened blond boy lying bound and gagged in a dank cavern.

“I've never heard of any caves up here,” Clough said. “He must have found a side vent into the closed railway tunnel.”

“Some rocks fell and there was the opening, that's what he said.”

“We'd better take a look,” Kevin said.

The footpath had come out where the river, having swung around the Tor, divided around a small island covered in gunnera, with its huge rhubarb-like leaves and rank smell. Here the water was swift but shallow. Skirting the island's soft mud, they splashed across, Clough in his wellies, Eric in his runners, Kevin in his service shoes, Danutia still in the hiking sandals she'd worn all weekend.

A narrow footpath ran along this side of the river as well. Eric stopped where the ash trees grew thick. “The side trail's somewhere near here. Only I never come from this direction, so it doesn't look right.”

“Go along straight till you think you've past it, and we'll turn around,” said Kevin, panting.

Soon Eric had found his bearings and they headed upwards along a faint trail through the ash woodland and its tangled undergrowth. At the edge of the copse they paused. Below them lay the narrow gorge of the Wye, the rushing water sparkling in the sun, a group of walkers on the other side like oblivious ants. Across twenty feet of open ground lay a tumbled pile of boulders.

“See those two big rocks on the right?” Eric's voice was low and excited. “That's where the cave is.”

What lay behind those boulders, Danutia wondered. A misguided but harmless man introducing a young boy to more or less harmless rituals, as Eric believed, or a scene far worse than he could imagine?

A sharp rasping sound
penetrated the cloudy layers of Arthur's consciousness. It was as if he was in a deep pond full of murky water, struggling to swim to the surface before his breath ran out. A wave of nausea swept through him. He couldn't let himself throw up; he would choke on his own vomit. He breathed slowly through his nose, trying to calm himself.

When he opened his eyes, his stomach clenched with fear. Weak daylight fell upon Stephen Ellison, who sat on the earthen floor opposite him, tied to a center post. Stephen's mouth was taped; his terrified blue eyes sent a mute appeal.

Arthur tried to move towards the boy and couldn't. His lower arms were bound with tape to some kind of chair, his torso and upper arms with nylon rope. From the pressure against his back, he guessed he must be tied to a second post. They were being held in a small shed, it seemed; Arthur could make out the shape of a lawnmower among other objects shoved to the back.

A figure passed by with a jaunty step and hung a Coleman lantern from a hook in the ceiling. Marple? Arthur wondered. Had he confronted the man, and somehow ended up his prisoner as well? When the lamp was lit, the face it illuminated was Dr. Geoff's, his smile of quiet satisfaction accompanied by a tuneless humming as he went out again and returned with a large tray covered with a cloth.

His milky blue eyes, darker in the dim light, rested first on Arthur and then on Stephen. “I'm glad to see both my guests alert and ready for an amusing little ritual. Think of it as a game, if you like. You like games, don't you, Stephen?”

He uncovered half of the tray, revealing a water jug and three glasses.

“To allow you to drink the water, I'm going to untape your mouths. But only on one condition: you must agree to play your parts.” He moved over to Stephen and ripped the tape away.

“He tricked me,” Stephen exclaimed. “He said Eric had been hurt and was asking for me.”

Dr. Geoff held up his hand in a threatening gesture and Stephen began to sob, sniffing as the tears ran down his face.

Arthur's heart went out to this boy unable to wipe his own tears. The moment his own tape was removed, he burst out: “Geoff, what the hell is going on? Don't you see Stephen's frightened out of his mind?”

“That's only because he hasn't accepted his part in the ritual. But you will, won't you, Stephen? Just as you will, Arthur,” he said in a cold voice.

Arthur felt a sudden chill of fear. This was a man he thought he knew, but actually didn't know at all. He tried again. “Geoff, you're the man who talked to me about science and the stupidity of the church. You listened to my suspicions about Marple, and seemed to agree. Now you're talking about some wacky ritual. I don't understand why you're playing games with us.”

Dr. Geoff moved away from the lantern, into the shadows. “Be quiet and listen. First, get it into your head that you and Stephen are in no danger from the Reverend Marple. That stupid man has no more idea where you are than your stupid
RCMP
lady friend does. This is my cottage, my shed. I'm the one who tricked Stephen. You weren't hard to trick either. I told you life's dangerous if you're a sheep.”

“But why?” Arthur asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

“There is nothing in life but the games we decide to play. You don't seem to grasp that.”

“I don't understand what you're talking about.”

“That's because you're like your friend Brad. He thinks humanism is about mankind's potential to do good without having a bearded figure up in the skies to tell us what good is. He's wrong. Good isn't about helping old ladies across the street; it's about controlling the games you play in life. If you're not in control, someone else is controlling you.”

“If you believe that, how can you believe in ancient rituals? I don't get it.” Arthur felt his voice rising and breaking. He shook his head and felt a cord tighten around his neck. Timothy Roberts strangled. The cord on the Wicker Man. The triple death. As his fear turned into panic, he struggled against his bonds. The cord tightened more and he slumped back.

“Stay calm, Fairweather. You'll find it's less painful. The answer: I don't believe in ancient rituals. At least, I don't believe they'll appease gods, or make the crops grow, or protect sheep and shepherds up on the White Peak,” Dr. Geoff said, moving slowly towards the center of the room. “I
do
believe that when ancient people did the rituals, they felt an excitement which built as they prepared for the sacrifice, and then climaxed in the sacrifice itself. That moment of sacrifice, when you've done the preparations carefully and followed the ritual process, is the moment when you're most alive.” Geoff's face, lit by the lantern, shone with a cruel rapture.

This man is a sociopath, Arthur thought with horror. Danutia was right to distrust him, and I was wrong. No consolation in thinking that, though. No matter how much she disliked Geoff, she would have no idea that he was the person they were looking for. She would find Cameron Roberts, but no Stephen, and go after the Reverend Marple. Then the trail would go dead.

Stephen was still whimpering softly. For the boy's sake, Arthur summoned up words of defiance and tried to sound as though he believed them. “You'll never get away with this. My friend will find us.” He couldn't bring himself to say her name in this evil place.

“By the time she does,
if
she does, it will be too late,” Dr. Geoff said, amused. “The thing about games is, if you don't play, you can't win. Your only chance is to play. I'll give you a few minutes to talk it over. How do you like the wheelchair, by the way? You see, you never know when something will come in handy.” He spread the cloth over the tray and crossed to the door.

Careful of the cord around his neck, Arthur turned his head to watch Geoff leave. He caught a glimpse of the summer twilight darkening into evening, and then the door clicked shut, the deadbolt shot home.

“Stephen,” he whispered, in case Geoff had his ear to the door, “listen carefully. This is what we have to do.”

Danutia turned to the
two men sizing up the jumbled pile of rocks twenty feet away. “What's the next step?”

Hugh Clough put a hand on Eric's shoulder. “You've done some caving with me. Tell us all you can about this one.”

As Clough's hand fell away, Eric straightened, his customary scowl replaced by earnest concentration. “The Grand Master only let me come up to the cave with him a few times, and that was months ago. First off, the entrance is behind a couple of big rocks, and you have to squeeze around them. Then maybe eight feet in, the tunnel narrows, so's I could barely get through.”