Unholy Rites (35 page)

“You hurt?” Kevin asked.

“I'm okay,” she said, catching her breath. “See if you can find the flashlight.”

“Got it.”

As she struggled to get up, Danutia felt smooth wood in the long grass. “Shine the light over here, would you?”

The thin beam revealed an object she'd know anywhere.

“It's Arthur's churchwarden pipe,” she said, cradling the gently rounded bowl. “This was his dad's favorite. Arthur found it among his mother's things and carries it constantly. He must have dropped it without Geoff noticing. It's proof he's been here, and that he's in danger. Now will you let me get Roberts?”

“We'll both go,” Kevin said. “Didn't you say they were seen getting into a white van? I'll try to put a trace on it. Let's hope it's Nuttall's.”

In ten minutes they were back with Roberts, who made short work of opening the shed door. There was an odd smell in the room and scuffed places on the earthen floor. Danutia knelt for a closer look. Blackened crumbs were mixed in with the dirt.

“At least he seems to have fed them,” she said, pointing out the crumbs. Her thoughts took a sickening turn as she remembered a passage from the coroner's report on Timothy Roberts. Stomach contents had included charred wheat, possibly from some kind of scone or hard cake. And the Lindow Man too. Charred grain. “Oh God. He's fed them a ritual meal. He's getting ready to kill them. And we don't know where to look.”

She noticed reddish drops where something liquid had fallen. “This could be blood,” she said, wanting to test it on her tongue but knowing she mustn't disturb the evidence. She bent over to sniff. “Smells more like chloral hydrate.”

Kevin rattled the cabinet door. It didn't give. He motioned Roberts forward. “Do your stuff.”

A twist of wire was all it took. Roberts threw back the door. The upper shelves were stocked with art supplies: paintbrushes, tubes of paint, and bottles of solvent. A plastic yogurt tub with short lengths of wicker in it. The Wicker Man, Danutia thought. An unmarked bottle. Kevin opened it and sniffed it. “Chloral hydrate, all right,” he said, looking grim.

The lower section of the cabinet was slotted to hold canvases. Danutia slid them in and out. Blank. Blank. Blank. Pencil drawings. Half-finished paintings. River and a block of stone. A row of arches, windows or the railway viaduct, hard to tell. A millpond and waterwheel.

Roberts peered over her shoulder. “That's the pond at Rowsley, where Tim died. Whose place is this then?”

Ignoring his question, Danutia slid the next canvas farther out. A clock face. “St. Anne's?”

Roberts shook his head. “Monsal Mill. You can tell by the stonework around the clock. Only the time's wrong. That clock always says 8:40. This one has both hands at five.”

Suddenly she understood.

“The time is meant to be wrong,” she said. “The hands at five/five mean May 5, Old Beltane Day. There was a painting of Monsal Mill at the Blessing Day exhibit. The clock hands were like this, and there was a hint of fire at one window. It wasn't signed, but it must have been Geoff Nuttall's. May 5 and fire at Monsal Mill. That's where he's holding Stephen and Arthur.”

“The bloke who drives the white van? Bloody hell. I used to see him painting there, when I was hiding out. You mean he's the one as lured my Tim to his death?”

They ran for the car.

Arthur winced as he
saw Stephen limping away from the fire. Still, he tried to keep his voice encouraging. “That was a great jump, Stephen. Sit down and rest.” He called to Geoff, “He's hurt his leg. You need to dress it.”

“Don't be stupid, Fairweather. The apprentices had to work whether they were hurt or not. It didn't matter. A burned leg doesn't matter.”

“You mean, the apprentices didn't matter to the masters who worked them to death. Those times are past. Dress Stephen's burn, for God's sake!”

“Not worked to death. Sacrificed. The mill owners could do what they liked. The apprentices had no say.” Geoff unhooked the lantern. His face, caught between its glow and the dancing flames of the fire, was as hard and twisted as the face of a gargoyle. He scooped up the black bag in his other hand and sauntered towards Arthur. “Haven't you ever wanted to do what you like, Fairweather?”

“Not at a child's expense,” said Arthur angrily.

“Everything is at someone's expense,” said Geoff. Setting the lantern and bag on the stone floor, he dropped onto the chair beside Arthur and crossed his legs, as though settling in for a philosophical debate. “The founders of this mill knew that.”

The blue suit, Arthur thought. The suit that farmers would wear for their Sunday best. The founders of Monsal Mill were farmers. When they became mill owners, this would be what they'd wear. The blue suit was the cassock and Geoff the priest in his church of one.

“Stephen, more wood,” Geoff shouted. Stephen limped to the dwindling pile and threw a plank onto the fire. An ember flew up and hit the ceiling beam, flaring as it fell back.

Arthur's anger was turning into fear. “Geoff, if the fire gets any bigger it will bring the building down around our ears. The Beltane fire could destroy the mill you love so much.”

“Destruction is on the way, Fairweather. It just depends who controls it.” Geoff arose and moved the Wicker Man a foot or so farther away from the fire. “There's your marker, Stephen,” he called. “Build the fire almost out to there.”

When he resumed his seat, he said, “Do you know what the plans for the mill are? To turn it into flats for retired couples who will water their potted plants and walk their toy poodles and do whatever their betters tell them. Better Beltane fire than giving this place over to sheep like that. The fire will send the message that the true spirit of Monsal Mill lives on.”

As he glimpsed the doctor's intention, images from the Wicker Man movie flooded Arthur's consciousness, images of the policeman trapped in the flaming wooden giant. He glanced towards Stephen, who was scrabbling around the woodpile. Was there no hope of saving him?

“There's nothing left here but bits and pieces,” Stephen shouted, sounding relieved.

“I'll soon remedy that,” Geoff said, grabbing up the lantern.

As the doctor circled the subsiding fire with the lantern held low, Arthur caught a glint of metal from the opposite wall. All he'd noticed there before was a pile of old canvas sacks with rusty shelf brackets on top. Stephen must have moved the sacks while he was hunting for wood. The glint of metal came from a small rectangular opening in the wall.

Arthur held his breath as Geoff inspected the woodpile; then motioning Stephen to sit down, he tied the boy to his chair and left the room. He hadn't noticed . . .

A chute. That's what it must be. Two or three of the ground level rooms had chutes in them, Arthur remembered now. Packers used them to send bundled textiles down for storage in the basement.

“Stephen,” he called softly, but fell silent as he heard footsteps approaching. Geoff came in with an armful of old boards and left again.

“Stephen,” he called again, as loudly as he dared. This time the boy's head came up, and he looked at Arthur with such an expression of mingled hope and despair that Arthur found it hard to meet his gaze.

He said, “I think there's a chute behind that pile of sacks over in the corner.” Stephen looked puzzled, so he tried again. “It's like a slide. People who worked here sent things down on it.”

Stephen got it that time. “I saw it. Like a little doorway,” he said excitedly. “What do you want me to do?”

“First, cover it up again if you can do that without Geoff seeing. When I say ‘Run!' head for the slide and push yourself down. I think it's big enough for you but too small for Geoff. Got it?”

“Got it!” said Stephen. He stopped abruptly as the door banged open and Geoff entered with another armful of wood.

Oh Stephen, Arthur said to himself. Who knows what you'll be sliding into: a room with a blocked exit, maybe, or straight into the arms of a psychopath? Nonetheless, he felt a tiny flutter of hope.

Geoff dumped the boards on the pile and untied the boy. “Now lay the wood carefully, as you did before,” he said. “But keep your distance. Fairweather and I have something to discuss. Don't let me catch you listening.” Then, bringing the lantern, he again sat close to Arthur. “I've decided to take a risk,” he said.

What's this, Arthur asked himself. Geoff taking a risk? He'd left nothing to chance so far. He had checked Arthur's ropes regularly to make sure nothing had loosened, and had kept a close eye on Stephen since the boy had been able to leave his chair. What was coming?

“I've called you stupid, and you are,” Geoff went on. “Still, you're smarter than the others round here. Too smart to believe all this claptrap you keep spouting about humanity and caring for little nobodies from nowhere. Are you brave enough to acknowledge who you really are, and survive? Do you want to live and die a victim, like a bloody sheep?”

Arthur felt his hope expand. If he said the right words, would his captor actually free him? If he was freed, Geoff would be no match for him. But could he find convincing words? Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stephen cautiously edge the sacks back into their original place. Keeping his voice low, he said, “I'm afraid.” He wasn't lying about that. “I don't see a point in dying if I don't have to. What do you want me to do?”

“You will have to encourage Stephen to make his final jump. He must know that there is no stepping back.”

Arthur turned towards the crackling fire. Smoke billowed up as the newly laid boards began to catch. Soon the fire would be huge. It was clear what encouraging the boy to jump would mean.

“I'll play your game. I want to live,” said Arthur, trying to sound self-interested without overdoing it.

“That's the man,” said Geoff, smoothing his mustache. He called out, “Stephen, come here. Your friend has something to tell you before the third jump.” When the boy approached, Geoff turned to Arthur. “Now tell him what you have decided.”

Arthur had acted some challenging parts in his time, but this was his greatest challenge. He tried to put aside his fear, so that he could enter the state of mind of someone so desperate to save his own skin that he would betray a child.

“Stephen, I'm proud of the way you made the first two jumps. You showed great courage.” Steeling himself against the boy's shy smile, Arthur went on. “Only one jump remains, and then you and I will be free. You must make the final jump, however impossible it seems.” Seeing horror and betrayal dawn on Stephen's face, Arthur choked over the next words, trying to disguise his emotion in a fit of coughing. He tried again. “You must leap the fire, the sacred Beltane fire.”

Tears rolled down Stephen's face. “You can't mean that. Say you don't, please . . .”

Unable to face the boy, Arthur looked up at Geoff.

“See where your habit of encouraging him has led you, Fairweather?” he said with the sarcastic smile Danutia hated. “You've broken the poor boy's heart, and all for nothing. I've decided not to accept your offer of help.” He withdrew the book from the black bag. “Come, Stephen, take your place. It is time for the sacred words, and the ritual that follows.”

While Stephen slowly skirted the fire, Geoff leaned down to Arthur. “You didn't convince me, but you've convinced Stephen,” he whispered. “You've failed him as a father, just as I said you would. Fortunately you won't live long enough to betray your own child.”

My own child? What was Geoff talking about? A horrible realization entered Arthur's consciousness. Danutia's bouts of nausea, her irritability and sudden tiredness. Is that what it meant? Little wonder then that she'd been so prickly about the night they'd slept together. She was bearing the consequences in her body. And now he was about to lose his chance to prove that he could be a father, and become a father his child would never know. He felt a sudden intense anguish.

But his speculations were nothing compared with what Stephen was facing, for the doctor was again reading from his book.

The third jump is for life's impossible challenges. The loss of your whole means of livelihood. The arrival of a terminal disease for yourself, or the person closest to you. The complete breakdown of social order, and chaos in the tribe. The cruelty of a father that goes on and on and will not stop. This is the jump into greater aliveness, the jump that is impossible physically and can only be achieved by the completion of the work of art, the work of sacrifice. It is time for the third jump.

The fire had turned into a wall of flame. It reached the Wicker Man, and as the man started to burn, Geoff's face broke into a cruel smile. In that moment, Arthur realized that there was no way out and there never had been. Geoff had never intended to let Stephen successfully jump the fire, and had never intended to release Arthur. Their fate was to be consumed by the flames. Everything Geoff had done, including the invitation to betray Stephen, had been part of the same cruel game.

From beside Arthur's wheelchair, Geoff repeated, “It is time for the third jump.”

Wondering whether the boy now trusted him enough to take heed, Arthur shouted, “Run, Stephen, run,” and threw all his weight to the side, tipping himself and the chair in the way as Geoff started after Stephen. Geoff stumbled, then, cursing, he grabbed up the lantern and raced towards the chute just as Stephen disappeared down it. Sending the lantern crashing into the wall above the woodpile, Geoff rushed out the door. Arthur watched the wood pile go up in flames as the oil splashed outwards, saw flames web upwards along the ceiling. The heat and smoke became too much, and everything went black.

Kevin turned into Mill
Lane at top speed, tires screaming. He killed the siren and flashers. “We don't want to alert Nuttall, if he's at the mill,” he said.