Unholy Rites (30 page)

He eyed the two men. “You guys would never make it. I'll have to go.”

“We'll talk about that later,” Clough said. “How long is the tunnel?”

“It goes straight for maybe twenty feet, then there's a drop-off,” Eric said, and Danutia felt her stomach lurch. “Only you don't go down,” he continued. “You bend to the left, into a larger tunnel that opens into a big room pretty quick. There's air from somewhere, and these spooky whistling noises.”

“Sounds like a hard place to carry supplies, if this guy's living there,” Clough said.

“Oh, he doesn't live there,” Eric said. “The cave's just for rituals.”

Kevin looked exasperated. “Then what makes you think he's keeping Stephen there?”

“For the ritual,” Eric said, sounding exasperated in turn. “He has to learn the ritual for tomorrow night.”

“When I searched Monsal Mill yesterday,” Danutia put in, “I found signs that he may have been living there until recently. He could have moved into the cave.”

Kevin shook his head. “Sorry, lad. This may be dangerous. Is there another entrance?”

Eric turned away, scuffing at the ground with the toe of his runner. “Not that I know.”

Clough said, “The air current suggests there must be another way in, but it could take a long time to find it.”

While they talked, Danutia had been studying Eric. She was a few inches taller but no broader through the shoulders, and though her waist was definitely thickening, her hips were still slender. She'd always been afraid of heights, and cramped spaces were almost as bad, but that didn't matter. She took a deep breath.

“I'll go,” she said, ignoring the voice that whispered, “But what about the baby?” If being pregnant meant ducking her responsibilities, it was time for an abortion. She knew women in the force who'd shifted to routine desk jobs when they had kids, but that wasn't for her.

Seeing Kevin's doubtful look, she added, “Don't say I don't have any police powers. You can make me a special constable.”

“Then what?” Kevin asked. “The bloke has two hostages instead of one?”

“I may not have authority here, but I'm trained to handle hostage situations. The thing is, we don't even know if he's in there, with or without Stephen. We have to find out. So it's me, or wait until someone else the right size gets here, and then do the same thing. Meanwhile, time may be running out.”

“She's right,” Clough said, passing around a water bottle. Danutia took a few grateful sips. The day was sunny and warm, with scarcely a hint of a breeze. “The one Mountain Rescue lad who is thin enough works in Derby,” he added. “It would take him several hours to get here. And from what Eric says, the going is pretty straightforward. No need for an experienced caver.”

Kevin sighed. “All right then, but we need backup.”

Staying well away from the cave entrance and under cover of the trees, they quickly worked out a plan. While Kevin wrote a note for Eric to take to the backup team on Wormhill road, Danutia kitted herself out as best she could. She kicked off her wet sandals, pulled on nylon coveralls and dry wool socks from Clough's backpack, and laced up his boots. They were a little big, but then she wouldn't be walking.

Clough produced a climbing rope. “Clip this to your side belt loop,” he said, backing up and pulling the rope taut. “Okay, let's practice. One long tug—everything's okay. Good. Now two tugs—waiting for gear and assistance.” As Danutia responded, their eyes met in silent recognition of what the signal would mean—someone dead or wounded. “Now three quick tugs—getting the hell out!”

Sharp jerks one-two-three, trying not to imagine why: The tunnel collapsing. Running out of air. A gun pointed at her.

When Clough was satisfied that Danutia could signal with her arms in various positions, he said, “Give a tug every two minutes or so to let us know everything's okay. If you haven't signaled after five, we'll go to Plan B.”

“What's Plan B?” Danutia asked.

“We'll think of something,” Kevin said, handing her the only weapons he carried: baton, pepper spray, handcuffs.

Danutia stowed them in her back pockets, along with Clough's Swiss Army knife. Adjusted the strap and checked the headlamp on his hard hat. Took another swallow from his water bottle, the water warm now and tasting of plastic. Then she nodded. She was as ready as she would ever be.

They crossed the open ground to the tumbled pile of rocks. Eric squeezed behind two big boulders and Danutia followed. “This first part's not too bad,” he whispered, exposing an opening about two feet wide and almost as high. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Eric.” She handed Clough the coiled rope, which he would pay out as needed, and slipped on thin gloves to protect her hands. “Here we go.”

She dropped to her knees and then stretched forward, pausing to let her eyes adjust. She wouldn't turn on her headlamp until she had to. Putting aside thoughts of what she might find at the other end—a demented killer, a dead child—she reached forward, her gloved hands grasping at worn rock. Breathe, she reminded herself. For now there was only this breathing, this reaching out, one hand and then the other, her feet pushing backwards, moving herself through darkness.

The tunnel was dry but musty, and she suppressed a sneeze. She'd only gone a few feet when she picked up a faint whooshing noise, which grew louder as she advanced. Air currents? Hard to tell. At least the noise might cover the sounds she couldn't help but make, the skittering of dirt and rock, the scrape of her boots.

Time dissolved and flowed away into the darkness. Had it been two minutes? Better too soon than too late, she thought, giving a long tug on the rope at her side. A lifeline, attaching her to the world outside. Inching forward, she thought again of the baby growing inside her, the cord that bound them, the invisible cord stretching out to Arthur. When the tunnel closed in even tighter and she felt panic rising in her chest, she took a deep breath and tugged on the line again, and was comforted.

The whooshing sound had become a snuffling and now a snorting, like her dad's pigs at feeding time. Danutia stretched out her right arm and encountered nothingness. As far as she could reach, nothing. She switched on her headlamp. A black hole yawned before her. This must be the drop-off Eric had mentioned. The big room couldn't be far away.

No sense in making herself a target. Extinguishing the light, she groped with her left hand until she felt the bend in the tunnel. Then, squeezing against the side wall, she forced herself onward.

The air grew fresher as the tunnel widened, and soon she was at the mouth of the big room. The whooshing, snuffling, snorting settled into a more familiar sound. Danutia snapped on her headlamp and there, silhouetted in its beam, sprawled a man wrapped in a black cloak, a whiskey bottle clutched in one hand, snoring. Some Grand Master. She snapped on the handcuffs, but he snored on.

With a sense of dread she turned the headlamp into the cave's dark corners. Empty tins, half-burned candles in silver candlesticks, a silver goblet, and, lined up along the cave wall, half a dozen Toby jugs, along with items still wrapped in plastic shopping bags. No small body, alive or dead. Nothing to indicate Stephen had ever been there.

A wave of relief swept through her, then dread again. Where was he?

She shouted and shook the man, but nothing woke him. Frustrated, she wanted to kick him, pound him senseless, demand to know what he'd done with the boy. She felt three sharp tugs at her waist. The rope. She'd forgotten to signal. She gave a steady pull, then shook the man again, harder. “You'd better get moving or my backup will come in, and they won't be so gentle,” she said.

He blinked up at her with bleary eyes. “What? Leave me alone. I ain't done nothing.”

“That's to be seen,” she said. “In the meantime, out you go, and no tricks.” She uncuffed him and watched him slither into the tunnel ahead of her. He'd better have some answers.

After a few minutes
Arthur heard the key turn in the lock.

“Well, chaps,” Geoff said as he entered, “what have you decided?”

Arthur's mouth was completely dry. “I'll play your little game,” he croaked. They were securely taped and bound. Buying time seemed their best option. “We have to play along,” he'd explained to the frightened boy, “to give the police time to find us.”

Gazing at Arthur with a trusting and hopeful look, Stephen said, “Me too.”

Arthur felt a wave of tenderness for the boy. How painful to have such trust directed towards him, when he had so little hope of deserving it. He couldn't unravel the turnings of Geoff's twisted mind, but he was too much a pessimist to think the man would merely tire of his theatrics and set them free.

“Excellent! Let us begin.” Geoff folded back the cloth and filled three glasses from the jug. Holding one glass aloft, he said, “We begin with the ceremony of water. The ancient people knew water is the source of life. They celebrated this source in ways we no longer understand, and so trivialize with well dressing competitions and duck races. So now, as we partake of the water needed by the plants and animals and the men who tend them, let us do so with gratitude to those who came before and showed us the way.”

He brought the first glass and held it to Stephen's lips. The boy sipped and then choked, as though the liquid was pouring in too fast. Good boy, Arthur thought. He'd warned Stephen that the jug was likely laced with knockout drops, as the whiskey in the van must have been.

When it was Arthur's turn, Geoff said, “Don't mind the taste. It's water from your mother's well, especially for you.” Arthur let some of the liquid dribble from the sides of his mouth, hoping that in the poor light Geoff wouldn't notice.

“Dear me, that won't do,” Geoff said. “Swallow the rest, or I'll have to refill the glass.”

Arthur swallowed the last mouthful.

Geoff returned to the tray and held up the third glass. “We are coming to the end of the season of water,” he said, putting the glass down without drinking from it. Arthur's suspicions were confirmed. Geoff gazed at his captives. “Like all things, water has two sides. It nourishes many, but causes suffering to others. Sheep drink from the river, but every year some drown. Men drink water and harness its power for their own uses, but some men drown too. Sometimes this drowning is accidental, but sometimes it fulfills a deeper purpose.”

“You killed Timothy Roberts,” Arthur blurted out, his sudden conviction overwhelming his pretense at co-operation.

“How clever of you, though I prefer the word ‘sacrificed.' We can debate the point while I finish my preparations.” Geoff fetched a garden chair from the back of the shed, took something from a large locked cabinet, and sat down a few feet away. In his lap he held a half-made wicker figure and a small knife. He began tucking strands of wicker into the frame, snipping off the ends by bending them over the sharp blade. “To understand why Tim's death was a sacrifice, you have to understand the connection with well dressing.”

Arthur couldn't take his eyes off the Wicker Man. He fought to keep his anger and fear in check, to keep the man talking. “I thought you used the well dressing frames, the boards and ropes, to make it look like an accident.”

“Come, come, Fairweather. You're smarter than that. Nothing connected me to Tim, so there was no need to make his death look like an accident. No, it was my attempt to expose the hollowness of the custom. You see, my father never thought outside the Christian box. Even when I was seventeen I knew all that stuff was nonsense. So did my uncle—the one who lived in Rowsley. Nevertheless, he had a scientific interest in comparative religion. He told me how the ancient Celts celebrated the gift of water. Do you know what that celebration involved, Fairweather?”

Arthur glanced at Stephen, wishing he could spare him this conversation. The boy's eyes were closed. Was it the drug, or had he retreated into an inner world where none of this was happening? The word was wrenched out of him. “Sacrifice.”

“Exactly,” Geoff said, with the satiric smile Arthur now found as hateful as Danutia had. “When I heard that, I realized why, even at seventeen, I hated well dressing. Not only had it become Christian, but it was phoney, totally phoney. The Celts didn't prance around waving flowers; they practiced sacrifice in a very special and systematic way.”

“The triple death,” Arthur whispered.

“Right again. Like my uncle, I had a scientific temperament. The moment he described the triple death, I wanted to see how it worked. And I found out.”

The man's cold-blooded detachment left Arthur speechless. How could anyone take a human life with so little feeling?

Geoff held out the almost-finished Wicker Man and gave it an appraising look. “A little lopsided, but it will do. Did you know that Timothy was interested in art?” he went on.

Relieved by the sudden change of topic, Arthur said, “One of the newspaper articles mentioned it. I didn't pay much attention.”

“Well, you should have. Art was very important to Tim. That's how we met. I was sent to stay with my uncle and I dropped in to an art class Tim was taking. And guess who was teaching it?”

Arthur was beginning to feel drowsy. Too much of Geoff's liquid had made its way down his throat. Finally he said, “I can't guess.”

“The esteemed Mr. Marple, who else? He wasn't a clergyman then. It was an all-ages class, but Marple took a special interest in its youngest members. Probably an innocent interest, though my family later portrayed it differently. He was certainly too innocent to notice what I was getting up to with young Timothy.”

“What was that?” Arthur murmured, trying to keep the conversation going.

Dr. Geoff smiled, a cruel, knowing smile. “Not what you're thinking, Fairweather. When I discovered that young Timothy was interested in adventure, the rest was easy. I invited him to a midnight art adventure. He was excited to be part of my game. No one suspected a thing. Until your mother started nosing around.”