A taste of acid in her mouth, Kate backed towards the door. She reached it and backed into the hall, her eyes on the spot where the woman had stood. She didnt believe in ghosts. No one sane believed in ghosts. Only to joke with the Lindseys. It was her imagination; she was too conscious of the black stormy night outside the windows and it had created this vision inside her head. That was it. Who was it who had said we are all mad at night? Was it Mark Twain? She shook her head. Whoever it was was right.
Or it might be the whisky. Perhaps she had been drinking too much. And the rest of the bottle was in the living room where it had been standing. Too bad. She could do without it. She took the stairs two at a time and running into her bedroom she slammed the door. She was still shaking, but not so much she couldnt drag the Victorian chair, heavy for all its neat smallness, across the room and wedge it under the handle. Why, oh why hadnt she insisted on having a bolt fitted to her bedroom door as well while the locksmith was about it this afternoon?
It was only as she pulled off her clothes and dived into bed, pulling the covers up over her head, that she remembered that ghosts can walk through walls.
XXII
In his bedroom Patrick frowned. The mathematical formula he had been working on wasnt going to come out. Somehow he had to try it another way. He paused for a minute, staring into space. He could hear the music from Allies bedroom blaring down the passage. Even with two doors closed in between it was deafening. He sighed. Yelling would do no good. If anything it would make her turn it up louder. He frowned for a minute pondering on how she had persuaded Greg to fork out for a new radio cassette. Their father had said that the insurance would probably pay in the end, but why had Greg put his hand in his pocket so fast? He puzzled over it for a few minutes more but already his mind was going back to the figures on his screen.
Around him his books, their spines all neatly aligned, were gleaming, friendly companions in the semi-darkness. The only light in his room came from the anglepoise lamp on his desk and from the screen of the computer.
He thumped the enter key a couple of times and tried again, conscious suddenly of the sound of the sea in the distance and the whine of the east wind and the patter of rain on the window.
Before him the screen shivered. He frowned and rubbed his eyes. A letter had dropped from the top of the screen to the bottom. Then another, then another.
Oh, no! Oh fucking hell! He stared at it in disbelief. Not a virus! Not a fucking virus!
Holding his breath he tapped at the keys frantically, trying to save what he had been doing, but already the screen was blank and the cursor was moving purposefully up to the top left hand side once more. Slowly a message appeared.
May the gods of all eternity curse you, Marcus Severus Secundus and bring your putrid body and your rotten soul to judgement for what you have done here this day
Patrick stared, clutching at the wooden arms of his chair. For a moment he sat without moving, reading the message through and through again, then he stood up with such violence that his chair fell onto the floor behind him.
Allie! Allie! Im going to wring your bloody neck! He hurled himself at the door. What have you done to my computer, you stupid, silly cow?
He pounded the six short strides down the passage and threw open her bedroom door.
After the comparative darkness of his room, hers was a shock. At least six light bulbs blazed in there two spotlights, a ceiling light and three desk lamps, sitting at strategic angles on the floor. No wonder she had migraines!
His sister was lying on her bed, still fully dressed, a dazed look on her face as she listened to her Sisters of Mercy tape for the thousandth time.
Patrick flung himself on the machine and pulled out the cable. You cow! Do you realise what youve done? Youve only fucked up my project, thats what!
What? She stared at him blankly. The sudden silence after the blare of music was strangely shocking.
The message on my computer. Very funny! Very droll! Lets all have a good giggle! He was almost spitting with fury.
What message? She lay back again and put her arm across her eyes. I havent touched your silly computer.
Then who has?
I dont know and I dont care. Get out of my room.
Allie. His voice was suddenly very quiet. I am warning you.
I told you, I dont know anything about it, she repeated. Get out.
He leaned forward and seized her arm. Come with me.
No!
Come with me! He dragged her off the bed.
Paddy! Youre hurting me! she wailed as she followed him unwillingly down the passage and into the womblike darkness of his room.
There. Explain that! He flung his arm out in the direction of the screen.
She leaned closer and peered at it.
It looks like maths, she said. I havent a clue what it is.
Maths? He pushed her aside. The screen was neatly ordered, the formula complete. Nothing flickered. He stared at it in disbelief. But it all fell off. There was a message a curse
Bullshit! she said rudely. Can I go now?
He didnt hear her. He was running his finger over the screen. I saw it. A message. A curse
But Allie had gone, slamming the door behind her.
XXIII
I hope it doesnt snow too hard. Id hate for you to miss your last talk, Sam Wannaburger, Jons American editor, said apologetically as he hefted up the heavy case. Im just so glad you agreed to come out and see us. He had collected Jon from his hotel in a pickup the size of a pantechnicon and driven him in the general direction of south-west. They had stopped at last at a white-painted clapboard house set back from the main street in a small town somewhere in deepest Massachusetts. The floodlights had been switched on, illuminating the graceful lines of the house and its surrounding fir trees, making it look ethereal, floating in a sea of whiteness for here the grass and the sidewalks were already covered in two or three inches of soft white fluffy snow. Anyway, its too late to worry about it now. Well have good booze, good talk, good food. It wont matter how hard it snows! And if we cant get back to the big city in the pickup well leave it to AmTrak to get us there! Sam clapped Jon on the back and pushed him none too gently up the path towards the front door.
It was a wonderful house. Huge, converted, so Sam told him proudly, from an early-nineteenth-century carriage house. The fireplace alone was about twelve feet across, the logs burning in it cut to scale; the huge, soft sofas and chairs around it built obviously for seven-foot Americans. The house smelled of hothouse flowers and Jon hid a smile as he raised his head and sniffed surreptitiously like a pointer could that really be apple pie?
It was a wonderful house. Huge, converted, so Sam told him proudly, from an early-nineteenth-century carriage house. The fireplace alone was about twelve feet across, the logs burning in it cut to scale; the huge, soft sofas and chairs around it built obviously for seven-foot Americans. The house smelled of hothouse flowers and Jon hid a smile as he raised his head and sniffed surreptitiously like a pointer could that really be apple pie?
Sams wife was thin to the point of emaciation, and so elegant she looked as though she would break if she moved too fast. Her hand in Jons was dry and twiglike, her life force, he thought vaguely as he smiled into her bright birdlike eyes, hovering barely above zero. She was one of those Americans who filled him with sadness dieted, corseted, facelifted and encased in slub silk which must have cost old Sam a few thousand bucks, and looking so uncomfortable that he hurt for her. It was so incredibly sad that, for all her efforts perhaps because of them she looked years older than dear old rumpled, slobby Sam with his beer belly and his balding scalp and his huge irrepressible grin. I wonder, he thought idly as he saw her stand on tiptoe and present her rouged cheek to her husband for kissing a kiss which left a good two inches of cold air between them if she ever kicks off her shoes and has a good giggle. The thought reminded him of Kate and he frowned. Worried about the burglary he had tried to ring her three times from Boston after his last quick call and on none of them had she picked up the phone. Automatically he glanced at his watch and did the calculation. Six p.m. in Boston meant it was eleven or so in the evening at home. He glanced at Sam. Could I try and call Kate one last time. Its eleven over there. Im sure shell be at home by now.
Sure. Sam beamed. Let me show you your room. Youve your own phone in there. He lifted Jons case and led the way up a broad flight of open stairs which swung gracefully from the main living room up to a corridor as wide as a six-lane motorway. Jons bedroom was not as large as he had feared but it was luxurious beyond his wildest dreams bed, chairs, drapes, carpet, toning, matching, blending greens, until he had the feeling he was walking in a woodland womb. He smiled to himself at the metaphor. Ludicrous. Overblown. Outrageous. Like the room. Like his host. And wonderfully welcoming. He sat on the bed as Sam left him and pulled the phone towards him.
Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed in a clean shirt and a cashmere sweater Kate had given him for his birthday last year, Jon ran downstairs and accepted a large whisky mac from his host. His call had been a dead loss. After a great deal of hassle and toing and froing between the ladies of AT &T and the British exchange, they had established that the phone at Redall Cottage had gone suddenly and totally dead.
XXIV
The priests had walked in solemn procession to the sacred place in the circle of trees on the ridge above the marsh. Nion was not senior among them he was young but his royal blood gave him a certain precedence as they made their way, robed and solemn, to their appointed places in the circle.
Nion glanced round. The faces of his teachers, his friends, his colleagues,were taut, their thoughts turned inwards, their bodies bathed and dedicated to their purpose. He grimaced, trying to turn his own mind to prayer and meditation. The choosing of the sacrifice was a ceremony he had taken part in only once before. On that occasion the sacred bread had been baked on the flame and broken as laid down by tradition centuries old. The scorched piece, the piece which belonged to the gods, had been chosen by an old druid of four score summers or more a man dedicated and ready for whatever the gods decreed. But even he, when he drew out the burned portion and knew that he was to die, had betrayed for a brief moment a flash of terror, before he had bowed his head in acceptance.